An Amicable Intercession: Juan Carlos I of Spain in the River Uruguay’s Pulp Mills International Dispute

Abstract

This paper examines the diplomatic and sociopolitical dynamics that limited the expected results of a Third Party Intervention (TPI) in the ongoing international dispute, involving two Latin American (LA) countries, Argentina and Uruguay, that the latter’s approval of two Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) pulp mill projects on the River Uruguay’s - their natural boundary - eastern coast unleashed. The purpose of this Conflict Management (CM) analysis is to expose how and why both national governments’ belated and improper handling of the dispute severely limited the scope and the capabilities of the agreed TPI. Argentinean societal opposition to each FDI was firstly based on grounds of environmental concerns and, when environmental assessments contradicted that claim, on the refusal to grant a Social License to Operate (SLO) to any of them. The overall effect of these restrictions made the TPI partially ineffective; thus, the unsolved dispute continues harming with further negative impacts the relations between two neighboring countries with a long history of harmonious relations.