Bolivia had lost its last legal battle to gain access to the seat at least as
decided by the Hague Tribunal after it was declared competent in 2013 to deal
with the maritime demand oblivia thus Chile will not be forced to negotiate a
sovereign exit to the sea for Bolivia and the event that the Hague Tribunal
had dictated to Chile that I was obliged to negotiate a sovereign exit to the
seat Chile would have been able to comply
with the Hague's order negotiate a sovereign exit in good faith and could
decide to concede territory an act that would have been political suicide for
the Chilean government where they would have chosen to completely ignore the
Hague's ruling both of these situations would have been chaotic for Chile the
possibility of relinquishing territory or ignoring the sentence of an
international arbitrator to which Chile agreed to recognize and to which Chile
itself has gone on previous occasions in order to resolve disputes with
neighboring countries such as Peru would have been an act of hypocrisy something
that must be clear is that under no circumstances even if the sentence was
favorable for Bolivia could the International Court of Justice force
Chile to concede a square centimeter of territory so what's going to happen now
well it's complicated the Bolivian Constitution says that the
country will not renounce an exit to the sea and the Haig's ruling has
practically no effect on the Bolivian Constitution so does that imply that
Bolivia will renounce its desire for an exit to the sea of course not
but a dispute of several years has just come to an end and this is a devastating
denial to the only possible sovereign exit that Bolivia could possess to the
sea will war be waged in the Pacific very improbable but the sentence has
just given a final thrust to the issue of the maritime outing between La Paz
and Santiago but it could also mean a personal defeat for Morales and thus
affect their chances of re-election in 2019 constitutionally impossible but
with the power of Morales and supreme Electoral Tribunal it just might be
possible so we will see today what will happen to Bolivia after this failure and
how they did not take advantage of the several trips to the sea that it still
had without further introduction let's begin
Loui via had lost its access to the sea for the second time and more than 130
years the decision of the International Court of Justice located in the hague
was an unforeseen obstacle for the political ambitions of evo morales who
took this demand not only as an unquestionable cause for his country but
also for his personal and political motivations a territorial political and
sovereign cause collapsed in less than a few hours so what options does bolivia
have could they appeal this decision not exactly once the ruling was made it
is unappeasable so now we will explore the possible routes that Bolivia still
has to the sea and in the end we will treat a special point of the amount of
access Bolivia had that was yielded to them by Peru and their failure to take
advantage La Paz has been defeated legally by Santiago in the Netherlands
there is no longer a legal framework that La Paz can rely on the only current
and possible way for Bolivia to possess sovereign territory that belongs to
Chile would be through an act of military aggression to take this
maritime strip by force this path is politically impossible and from the
military's point of view Chile has an army that is among the most equipped in
the Americas and Bolivia would not risk using force or in other words cause a
war in any case military aggression would obviously be perceived terribly by
the international community and above all by Latin America isolating Bolivia
even more and effectively condemning Evo Morales to lose in the next elections in
2019 all this and the unnecessary loss of human lives
so military action is simply out of the question it should also be noted that
the process of the International Court of Justice that Evo Morales promulgated
since 2011 and accepted in 2013 meant five years of less than desirable
diplomatic relations between Santiago and La Paz a situation where both
countries have no ambassadors in their respective capital cities since 1978
these two countries have only ever had consular relations but when the demand
was filed by Bolivia before the hey it sank the relations lower than ever in a
way this also destroyed the South American integration process the five
years of bad relations with Chile has cost the country millions of dollars now
they are simply asking for customs commercial concessions to Chile which
will be a delicate issue for La Paz since the position of Santiago had just
been reaffirmed with the Hague's ruling in one way or another if the ruling had
been in favor for Bolivia this could somewhat set an
US precedent for other states which would consider that they would apply
this precedent to file claims for lost territories or ceded and treaties in the
future first of all we must bear in mind the following the Higgs process never
discussed the secession of territory but simply the obligation to establish a
dialogue which could lead to the effective transfer for a part of it no
international body or entity could compel a country to cede territory
except the United Nations Security Council but if the ruling had been given
in favor this case could inspire other nations that have lost territories in a
way they considered to be unjust so hypothetically Ecuador could sue Peru to
force a dialogue for the Amazonian territories lost by the Rio de Janeiro
protocol in which it lost more than half of its territory Mexico could
technically sue the United States to force it to negotiate a recovery of the
states of California Texas and Arizona the treaty that ended the war of the
Pacific condemned Bolivia to be a landlocked country thus accompanying
Paraguay within South America as a landlocked country while all other
countries of the Americas have coastlines Bolivia argues that the lack
of access to the sea limit the possibility of developing and
integrating international trade but is this true the truth is that Bolivia and
Paraguay are both landlocked states that do have access to international waters
through agreements signed with Argentina and Chile
so that Bolivian products can circulate without taxes so is it true that not
having access to the sea condemned Bolivia to poverty Paraguay and Bolivia
are two of the least wealthy countries of South America
and although the factor of not having a littoral zone might have something to do
with this it is not totally true since both countries do have access to
international waters thanks to the agreement with its neighboring countries
and even rivers that pass through Bolivia and Paraguay that flow into the
Atlantic the issue of whether or not a coastal state is richer will be
addressed in another video but for now there are great examples that not having
access to the sea has not been much of an impediment to development there are
several examples such as Switzerland the Czech Republic Austria and others
although there are studies that show that landlocked nations are generally
slightly poorer this is mostly due to the impossibility of exploiting the 200
nautical miles that they would possess and with it all kinds of industries such
as extraction of oil or mining or fishing and other food industries we
must know however that the Bolivians already had a piece of coast
less than half an hour by car from Bolivia a strip of five kilometers long
and one kilometer wide that proves ceded to the country to Bolivia in 1992 for a
hundred years that was known as Bolivia mark however this territory was never
given as renowned sovereignty to the area but more like a concession that
Peru gave to Bolivia to develop its activities in the area the fact is that
the only use that Bolivia could and can give is tourism building a hypothetical
Bolivian port is not possible the closest port oblivia mark which is
currently a desert which barely handles 10% of the cargo volume for the nearest
port the Chilean Erica the Bolivia Mar concession was supposed to diminish
commercial ties and dependence with the Chilean ports of akika and Erica ports
were Bolivia answers and shifts most of its merchandise a report was done by the
British channel BBC world in early 2018 that verified that almost 27 years later
the dream of building a Bolivian port in the Pacific Ocean never took off and the
beach never generated enough tourism to generate investment projects so in the
more than 26 years that proved seated this port it never even got a single
beach chair even so not all is lost for Bolivia they still have several ways to
access the sea without having to go through Chile a country that after this
ruling will close practically all possible doors for Bolivia another still
older alternative for Bolivia would be an exit to the Atlantic thanks to a
treaty that was signed with Paraguay in 1937 Bolivian vessels can reach
international waters starting from their own Bolivian docks and after crossing a
Paraguayan River flow into the Atlantic Ocean for that the Bolivians built the
bush port although its implementation has been very slow if not almost
paralyzed it meets the border with Paraguay in the Bolivian Department of
Santa Cruz in southeastern bolivia bolivian vessels are already seen in the
area but analysts indicate that the use of the specific outlets of the Atlantic
is minimal what Bolivia is looking for is not really a connection with
international waters well Bolivia wants is territorial sovereignty that has an
Outlook to the sea and that neither Chile nor Peru nor Brazil nor Argentina
are willing to negotiate would be a violation of a Magna Carta of the nation
in question and the president would be accused of treason and subjected to
impeachment The Hague ruling is a personal defeat for Bolivian President
Evo Morales and this will stay in his political reputation Morales will be
remembered for his achievements in Bolivia but this failure will be
remembered as one of if not his worst failure analysts believe that
not only made the suit against Chile only because of the inscription and the
Constitution that Bolivia would never cease to seek the exit to the seat but
to use it so that if the Hague will rule in its favor use this victory as the
main focus of his campaign for the presidential elections of 2019
elections in which by the way he should not be participating in because the
Bolivian people rejected in a referendum the possibility of Morales presenting
himself again in 2019 even so Morales ignored the referendum
and went before the Supreme Electoral Tribunal claiming that this was a
violation of his rights the ruling of the tribunal is still awaited to
determine if Morales will be able to participate in these next elections this
ruling is not only a defeat for Bolivia as a whole from the diplomatic point of
view but it is also a political defeat for president Morales who has been
promoting this idea for more than eight years his defeat implies in a way the
end of his political career that would have been respected in the event that
Morales respects the Constitution my personal opinion is that as unjust as
the Pacific War has been Bolivia lost its coastline period war does not
dictate who is right only who has the last word and in that time it was Chile
who possessed a greater military power and still does to this day similar
situations have occurred and will continue to occur throughout the world
and its history borders constantly changed countries are divided and
countries merge Bolivia must resign itself to the fact that they will
probably never get the seat but that does not mean that this is an impediment
for it to develop alongside its latin-american partners so I passed the
question off to you do you believe that Bolivia deserves an outlet to the sea
and that Chile or Peru has an obligation to cede it do you think Morales used the
maritime cause merely as a political instrument I hope you liked this video
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