Day 083 - 06 Feb 95 - Page 34


     
     1        predominance of evidence and argument will go in due
     2        course:  Firstly, whether that 80 tonnes came from
     3        ex-rainforest land.  I will just use the phrase
     4        "ex-rainforest" for that which is arguably so or recently
     5        ex-rainforest land.  Secondly, whether, even if it did not
     6        come from recently ex-rainforest land or ex-rainforest
     7        land, it can be said to have the kind of indirect effect on
     8        Brazilian rainforest for which the Defendants argue.
     9
    10        The Defendants go on to say, as knowledge about those
    11        imports was limited, viz. Dr. Gomez Gonzalez, and as
    12        knowledge about any policy not to import rainforest beef or
    13        Brazilian beef was limited, viz. what Mr. Walker did or did
    14        not know, we put in issue whether there was other Brazilian
    15        beef.
    16
    17        It seems to me the answer to that is "yes" or "no".  If
    18        there was no other beef from Brazil to the First or Second
    19        Plaintiffs outside Brazil, we need not worry about
    20        discovery; there is absolutely nothing to discover, is
    21        there?  On the other hand, if there are documents in
    22        relation to some import/export of Brazilian beef, are they
    23        not relevant to the issue as to what, if any, beef the
    24        First or Second Plaintiffs have had from Brazil and,
    25        secondly, whether if they have had beef from Brazil it
    26        comes from ex-rainforest land.
    27
    28   MR. RAMPTON:  May I answer that question?
    29
    30   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I am inviting you to answer it and help me
    31        over the matter, Mr. Rampton.  If the answer is there is no
    32        other Brazilian beef, then your clients need not worry.
    33        The answer is there are no documents which are even
    34        remotely discoverable.
    35
    36   MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord, I start, if I may, in answering that
    37        question and, as a matter of principle, rather further back
    38        down the line.
    39
    40   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes.
    41
    42   MR. RAMPTON:  The question of discovery and very likely -- I can
    43        say off the top of my head and be right -- that there are
    44        not any because there never was any such beef, but that
    45        question only arises if there is an issue to which that
    46        question is relevant.  There is not, in my respectful
    47        submission, and never has been, any general issue about the
    48        sources of the Plaintiffs' Brazilian beef, whether used in
    49        Brazil or exported to other countries of the world from
    50        Brazil at any time. 
    51 
    52        All that the Defendants have ever had as a basis for any 
    53        issue in the case, so far as Brazil is concerned, is this,
    54        a letter from Lord Vesty offering Mr. Walker supplies of
    55        beef from Brazil under the balance sheet scheme for a
    56        limited period, which letter states that the beef which
    57        would be used to make that supply had come from land which
    58        had not been ever rainforest land, so far as I am aware, in
    59        so far as it ever had forest on it, that forest was
    60        destroyed by a combination of fire and frost in the 1880s.

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