Río San Juan - Nicaragua

Client: Embassy of Nicaragua
Location: Río San Juan, Nicaragua
Date: 2012 to present

walls land+water was contracted by the Embassy of Nicaragua to assess environmental harm caused by the construction of a road along the Río San Juan, which forms the border between Nicaragua. Costa Rica constructed 146 km of road adjacent to the river, some through very steep and unstable terrain, with little planning or proper engineering. As a result, several sections of the road failed from landslides or were severely eroding, delivering large quantities of sediment directly to the river. walls land+water and a team of international experts conducted field surveys, installed monitoring equipment, and used various forms of remote sensing to estimate volumes of sediment being delivered to the river and assess physical and ecological harm to the river.

The case was filed in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague, Netherlands, as Construction of a Road in Costa Rica along the San Juan River (Nicaragua v. Costa Rica), which was subsequently joined with the case Certain Activities carried out by Nicaragua in the Border Area (Costa Rica v. Nicaragua). Mr. Walls and the team of experts worked over several years to assess and file evidence of environmental harm with the court. In addition, the team spent three weeks in the Hague with the legal team present the cases. More information can be found on the ICJ website.