Britta Sjöstedt

Nicaragua and Costa Rica have twice turned to the
International Court of Justice (ICJ) to resolve disputes
related to environmental damage occurring in a
transboundary context. In these two cases the Court
has to consider at least two issues. The first issue concerns
the territorial status of a disputed border area.
The disagreement is triggered by natural variations of
the San Juan River at the border between the two
countries, which causes confusion as to where the
State line lies. The second issue concerns environmental
damage; more specifically, it involves adversely
affected wetlands protected under the Ramsar Convention.
The obligations stemming from the Ramsar
Convention are of an open-ended character, rendering
them difficult to apply. Both issues are connected with
the fact that law and the environment have a complicated
relationship – that is, legal obligations may be
difficult to reconcile with a constantly changing environment.
Here, the ICJ has the opportunity to clarify
this uneasy relationship.