Nicaragua will have until June 2 to submit a response. Justices then will issue a final ruling on the damage compensation figure and on a deadline to make the payment.
Daniel Ortega said that while his government is willing to compensate Costa Rica, it considers the $6.7 million requested by Costa Rica to be “exaggerated.”
The multi-million-dollar price tag on the damages to the wetlands near the Caribbean border of both countries comes after the International Court of Justice ruled in December 2015 that Nicaragua violated Costa Rica’s sovereignty when it dredged an artificial canal through Isla Calero, also known as Isla Portillos or Harbour Head Island.
The case dates back to September 2013, when Costa Rican authorities discovered that Nicaragua had been dredging canals through Isla Portillos to connect the San Juan River with the Caribbean Sea despite that fact that the International Court of Justice had declared the territory “disputed."
The mitigation work that started this week in Isla Portillos, or Isla Calero, comes just three weeks before oral arguments are set to begin in the territorial dispute between Nicaragua and Costa Rica before the International Court of Justice in the Hague.
President Luis Guillermo Solís responded to media reports that Nicaragua would add 13 more dredging ships to the two already in the river, which is Nicaraguan territory. The president alleged that the additional dredging would risk affecting the water levels in the river and could damage the Isla Calero wetlands.
Costa Rica’s Foreign Ministry sent a formal complain to the Swedish Embassy protesting the “disrespectful use of Costa Rica’s National Anthem” on a political satire show on TV4.
Nicaraguan officials on Monday appeared before the International Court of Justice in The Hague to file a last response in the case against Costa Rica for alleged environmental damage caused by the construction of a road parallel to the San Juan River, a natural border between the two countries.
Costa Rican President Luis Guillermo Solís on Friday visited the isolated and impoverished border area in northern Costa Rica, the site of a troubled road project plagued by scandals and initiated by the previous administration of Laura Chinchilla.
