An obscure tribunal housed at the World Bank in Washington, D.C. will soon decide the fate of millions of people. At issue is whether a government should be punished for refusing to
let a foreign mining company operate because it wants to protect its
main source of water. The case pits El Salvador's government against a Canadian gold-mining
company that recently became part of a larger Australian-based
corporation. When OceanaGold bought Pacific Rim last year, it identified the Salvadoran mining prospects as a key asset even though gold prices have sunk by more than a third from their 2011 high of more than $1,900 an ounce.
The case's implications are chilling. If the company wins, this small country will have to either let the company mine or pay hundreds of millions of dollars.
A majority of the local people became increasingly concerned about toxic cyanide from mining entering the watershed of the Rio Lempa. The huge river provides water to over half of El Salvador's population. And so people said "yes to life and no to mining."
This has become a national slogan. Nearly 90 percent of local landholders refused to sell their land to Pacific Rim, a requirement for a mining license in El Salvador. At least four local people who were against mining were killed under suspicious circumstances as the conflict over mining deepened. The killings only intensified the anti-mining resolve.
Then, in an act of democratic accountability, the Salvadoran government listened to its constituents and refused to approve the corporation's inadequate environmental impact assessment. Indeed, three successive presidents of El Salvador have refused to approve this or any gold-mining license.
El Salvador's government and people could not be clearer. They have rejected this ill-fated mine. Yet the saga continues.
Thanks to trade and investment laws that the United States has championed in recent decades, corporations can sue governments if they perceive that government actions threaten their future profits. They typically sue in a little-known tribunal with a very long name: the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, part of the World Bank Group in Washington.
And so Pacific Rim sued the Salvadoran government for over $300 million even though the company never had an actual license to conduct anything more than preliminary mining exploration.
A panel of three arbitrators will hear this case starting September 15. They aren't required to follow legal precedents. Nor will the September proceedings be made public.
The fact that this lawsuit is going forward, never mind that El Salvador could lose, baffles the public in northern El Salvador. It also troubles top government officials in San Salvador.
As they continually stressed to us, their country can't afford the hundreds of millions of dollars it will be forced to pay if they lose the suit. Nor can their distressed watershed bear the costs of mining.
taken from here
The case's implications are chilling. If the company wins, this small country will have to either let the company mine or pay hundreds of millions of dollars.
A majority of the local people became increasingly concerned about toxic cyanide from mining entering the watershed of the Rio Lempa. The huge river provides water to over half of El Salvador's population. And so people said "yes to life and no to mining."
This has become a national slogan. Nearly 90 percent of local landholders refused to sell their land to Pacific Rim, a requirement for a mining license in El Salvador. At least four local people who were against mining were killed under suspicious circumstances as the conflict over mining deepened. The killings only intensified the anti-mining resolve.
Then, in an act of democratic accountability, the Salvadoran government listened to its constituents and refused to approve the corporation's inadequate environmental impact assessment. Indeed, three successive presidents of El Salvador have refused to approve this or any gold-mining license.
El Salvador's government and people could not be clearer. They have rejected this ill-fated mine. Yet the saga continues.
Thanks to trade and investment laws that the United States has championed in recent decades, corporations can sue governments if they perceive that government actions threaten their future profits. They typically sue in a little-known tribunal with a very long name: the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, part of the World Bank Group in Washington.
And so Pacific Rim sued the Salvadoran government for over $300 million even though the company never had an actual license to conduct anything more than preliminary mining exploration.
A panel of three arbitrators will hear this case starting September 15. They aren't required to follow legal precedents. Nor will the September proceedings be made public.
The fact that this lawsuit is going forward, never mind that El Salvador could lose, baffles the public in northern El Salvador. It also troubles top government officials in San Salvador.
As they continually stressed to us, their country can't afford the hundreds of millions of dollars it will be forced to pay if they lose the suit. Nor can their distressed watershed bear the costs of mining.
taken from here
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