Lawyer Edgar Pérez and Peaceful Resistance of La Puya to speak on webinar, October 1

Álvaro Sandoval of the Peaceful Resistance La Puya and Edgar Pérez of Human Rights Law Firm will be speaking on the webinar “Mining Injustice through International Arbitration” that will take place on October 1 at 7 pm ET.

To register for this webinar, please click here.

The Peace Brigades International-Guatemala Project accompanies both the Peaceful Resistance of La Puya and Edgar Pérez and the Human Rights Law Firm.

In March 2012 residents from San José del Golfo and San Pedro Ayampuc – an area known as La Puya, just north of Guatemala City – set up a peaceful, 24-hour a day blockade at the entrance of the Vancouver-based Radius Gold Inc. El Tambor mine.

By August 2012, the Canadian company sold El Tambor to US-based Kappes, Cassiday & Associates, but retained an economic interest in the mine (including quarterly royalty payments on the gold production from the mine).

By February 2016, the Peaceful Resistance of La Puya won a Guatemalan Supreme Court ruling that provisionally suspended the mining licence because there had not been prior consultation with affected communities, as is required under Guatemalan and international law, in particular the International Labour Organization’s Convention 169.

In response, Kappes, Cassiday & Associates filed a claim with the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, a World Bank arbitration mechanism, claiming its investor rights under the Dominican Republic–Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR) had been violated.

PBI-Guatemala recently noted: “The Peaceful Resistance La Puya is forming legal alliances and solidarity across national and international organizations and groups. Their objective is to make their voices heard in this exclusionary procedure and to create an antecedent that favors, not only the Resistance itself, but many other community processes that defend land, territory and water against projects which exploit natural resources.”

The promotion for the upcoming webinar highlights: “Join this webinar to learn about this $400 million claim, which is currently proceeding at a World Bank Group tribunal, as well as the ongoing resistance at La Puya, lessons from El Salvador, and the inherent injustice in the supranational Investor State Dispute Settlement System (ISDS).”

To register for the webinar, please click here.