This
A ruling that confirmed rights… but also the consequences of a century of historical silence
Introduction for the Web
The ruling by the International Court of Justice on July 13, 2009, in the case of Navigation on the San Juan River (Costa Rica vs. Nicaragua), established Costa Rica’s rights and limitations for the use of the San Juan River, a body of water historically crucial for commerce, defense, and sovereignty.
The Court confirmed that:
- The San Juan is under Nicaraguan sovereignty, according to the Cañas–Jerez treaty (1858).
- Costa Rica maintains a perpetual right of free navigation for commercial purposes.
- It cannot exercise armed police navigation, except in specific cases.
- Nicaragua may not obstruct or artificially increase the cost of exercising the Costa Rican right.
However, most relevant to the trilogy is what the ruling does not mention:
no Costa Rican legal argument used the historical evidence of the Transit Campaign, despite the fact that during that campaign (1856–1857) Costa Rica exercised total military control of the river, captured enemy steamers, established posts and routes, and executed effective sovereignty operations.
The historical silence—initiated in the 19th century and institutionalized in the Second Republic—left out of international litigation a chapter that would have reinforced the Costa Rican position for more than a century.
This case clearly demonstrates the central thesis of Silenced Waters:
when a country renounces its own history, it loses legal tools to defend its future.
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