A Transborder Environmental Controversy on the Danube: The Gabcikovo–Nagymaros Dam System

On the Slovak side, where the project was linked more closely to aspirations for independence and national pride, it was viewed as supplying needed energy, improving navigation and flood control, and replacing coal-burning and nuclear power stations. After Hungarian withdrawal from the treaty, the Slovaks continued with a revised version of the project, diverting the river to a power station at Gabcikovo. In 1994, the two countries filed a lawsuit with the International Court of Justice. The Court recently declared both the renunciation of the 1977 treaty and the diversion of the river illegal and instructed the two countries to negotiate an agreement on an environmentally sound technical solution and financial compensation.