Multinational Mineral Company Strikes Back at El Salvador

by Pete Dolack, Systemic Disorder

An Australian mining company insists its "right" to a guaranteed profit is superior to the right of El Salvador to clean drinking water—and an unappealable World Bank secret tribunal will decide if that is so.

Drinking water is the underdog here. It might be thought that Salvadorans ought to have the right to decide on a question as fundamental as their source of water, but that is not so. It will be up to a secret tribunal controlled by corporate lawyers. And as an added bit of irony, the hearing began on El Salvador's Independence Day, September 15. Formal independence, and actual independence, alas, are not the same thing.

The case, officially known as Pac Rim Cayman LLC v. Republic of El Salvador, pits the Australian gold-mining company OceanaGold Corporation against the government of El Salvador. OceanaGold is asking for an award of $301 million because the Salvadoran government won't give it a permit to open a gold mine that would poison a critical source of drinking water on which millions depend.