July 2006
On 3 May Argentina formally presented its complaint before the International Court of Justice, accusing Uruguay of violating of the Uruguay River Statute by authorizing the construction of the mills without prior consultation with Argentina.
On 11 May, at the opening of the European Union, Latin America and Caribbean Business Summit in Vienna, President Kirchner gave a speech reiterating the accusations against Uruguay, and also accused the developed countries of applying a double standard with respect to pollution controls. The presidents' official photo shooting was briefly interrupted by the presence of the Queen of the Carnival of Gualeguaychú, 26-year-old Evangelina Carrozzo, who had entered the event along with a Greenpeace activist, both with press passes obtained by a weekly newspaper of Morón, Buenos Aires whose director has collaborated with environmentalists before. As the shooting was about to begin, Carrozzo swiftly took off her overcoat (leaving her wearing only a tasselled bikini), produced a paper banner that read "No pulpmill pollution" in Spanish and English, and paraded with it before the 58 heads of state, before being taken away by security.
On 17 May 150 members of the Gualeguaychú Environmental Assembly travelled to Buenos Aires and, together with Carrozzo and some 200 local activists, they demonstrated in front of the embassies of Finland and Sweden. Jukka Uosukainen, head of the International Relations of the Finnish Environment Ministry, acknowledged concerns that the conflict is harming the country's reputation on environmental issues, and said that Argentine officials were invited to visit pulp mills in Finland but they refused.
On 27 June, environmental activist Romina Picolotti was appointed to preside the Argentine Secretariat of Environment and Sustainable Development. Picolotti, a lawyer who founded and presided the Center for Human Rights and Environment (CEDHA), used to counsel not only the Gualeguaychú Assembly, but also Entre Ríos governor Busti. The CEDHA, now presided by Picolotti's husband Daniel Taillant, provided legal advice to the Argentine case at the ICJ, and later organized a tour of several countries to raise international awareness of the pulp mills and present arguments against their construction.
Read more about this topic: Pulp Mill Dispute, May
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