PHM-Exch> Sign-on Request: CAFTA Mining Lawsuit against El Salvador

[Claudio Schuftan]

From: David Legge <D.Legge at latrobe.edu.au>


URGENT CALL FOR ORGANISATIONAL SIGN ON****

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The Pacific Rim case is a particularly egregious example of the kind of
excessive powers given to corporations under free trade agreements,
potentially including the TPP.  Please consider signing the letter below to
help us send a message that these anti-democratic corporate powers are
unacceptable and international civil society is fighting back.****

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We are organizing this international open letter on short notice because we
expect an imminent ruling from a World Bank tribunal regarding this case.
A group of labor union, environmental, and other civil society leaders will
deliver the letter at a rally outside the World Bank on Thursday, Dec. 15.
It will also be delivered to the media and to the lawyers and officers of
the global mining corporation that filed the lawsuit, Pacific Rim.  ****

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Please send the name of your organization and country by *Tuesday, December
13* to Manuel Perez-Rocha of the Institute for Policy Studies in
Washington, DC:  Manuel at ips-dc.org.  Many thanks!  -- Sarah Anderson,
Institute for Policy Studies****

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OPEN LETTER:  ****

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Robert Zoellick, President, World Bank****

Meg Kinnear, Secretary-General, ICSID****

V.V. Veeder, Tribunal president****

Brigitte Stern, Tribunal member   ****

Guido Santiago Tawil, Tribunal member****

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The signers of this petition represent more than XXX civil society
organizations.  We are writing out of solidarity with the communities of El
Salvador that have been working through the democratic process to prevent a
proposed cyanide-leach gold mining project, over well-founded fears that it
threatens to poison the local community’s environment as well as the
country’s most important river and source of water. ****

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Rather than complying with the environmental permitting process of El
Salvador, Pacific Rim launched an attack under the Dominican
Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). They are demanding
compensation from the government of El Salvador that could rise to hundreds
of millions of dollars.  In an abuse of process designed to attract
jurisdiction under DR-CAFTA, Pacific Rim moved its subsidiary from the
Cayman Islands to Nevada in the United States.  The case will be decided by
a tribunal at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment
Disputes (ICSID), associated with the World Bank. ****

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Pacific Rim is using ICSID and the investor-state rules in a free trade
agreement to subvert a democratic nationwide debate over mining and
sustainability in El Salvador.  These matters should not be decided by an
ICSID arbitration tribunal. In the course of Pacific Rim’s intervention in
the political affairs of El Salvador, four anti-mining activists have been
murdered in the project area. ****

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We stand with these communities and the government of El Salvador in their
demand that their domestic governance processes and national sovereignty be
respected, and thus that this case be dismissed.  We stand on the side of
democracy.****

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