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.
