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Foreign investment, knowledge and international arbitration: inside a research trip
22-Jun-2020 IIED
International investment law and investor dispute arbitration too often fail to notice the concerns of local actors. Governance of these international mechanisms needs to take a more holistic, development-based view of the issues.
Guatemalan water protectors persist, despite mining company threats
27-Mar-2020 Inequality.org
The hard work of protecting water and land from the long-term harms associated with gold and silver mining takes place daily on the frontlines of tenacious struggles throughout Latin America and around the world.
Arbitration overrules Tallinna Vesi tariff complaint, must pay costs
24-Jun-2019 ERR News
Tallinn water utility Tallinna Vesi has seen its claim against the Estonian state overruled by the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Dispute (ICSID), and has been ordered to pay costs likely to be in excess of half a million euros.
French firm Suez settles one of two disputes with Argentina for €220 million
26-Apr-2019 Buenos Aires Times
French water and waste management company receives compensation from the government, settling one of its legal disputes with country dating back to Néstor Kirchner’s presidency.
Trade agreements put our right to water at risk
22-Mar-2019 The Jakarta Post
Trade agreements like the RCEP are designed to make it easier for foreign multinational corporations to invest and do business. In doing so, they put the rights of citizens and workers second to profits.
Saving Japan’s seed heritage from “free trade”
7-Mar-2019 Local Futures
Former Japanese minister Yamada joined forces with 150 lawyers that have challenged as unconstitutional both the TPP agreement and the government’s decision to abolish the seed protection law.
Corporate sector in China’s Belt & Road: Impact on people’s access to land and water
12-Feb-2019 People’s Coalition on Food Sovereignty
China has been receiving flak for its conditional investments and loans that are resulting in land and resource grabbing in Asia and Africa.
Maude Barlow. Water isn’t a business, it’s a fundamental right we must protect
17-Jan-2019 Life Gate
CETA and other trade treaties don’t consider water as a basic necessity, they consider it as an investment, as something that can be traded through private services.
Position paper on the trade agreement between the EU and Japan
7-Jun-2018 Bdew
The free trade agreement between Japan and the EU pushes for more liberalisation - including for the water industry.
AöW-Position on the Economic Partnership Agreement between the European Union and Japan
7-Jun-2018 AöW
AöW highlights the concerns of public water management in Germany.
Suez accepts 25% haircut from Argentina to end dispute
12-Jan-2018 Bloomberg
French co. agreed to $275 million to settle 12-year dispute. Engie is the biggest shareholder in water, sewer company.
New report shows that trade tribunals are threatening the right to water
12-Dec-2017 IATP
A new report finds that the Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) process, included in NAFTA and other trade and investment agreements, is threatening the right to water around the world.
Six years after the ‘Aymarazo’ protests in Peru
28-Jun-2017 Radio Mundo Real
Criminal charges pending against 18 community leaders and a billion-dollar court case at ICSID.
Canada-China FTA talks to begin in February 2017 could have massive implications on water use
4-Jan-2017 Common Dreams
China might see Canada as a source for bottled water. Canada could also be promoted as a country ready for China’s water-intensive industries.
El Salvador’s win against the US mining company Pacific Rim : a very nuanced victory
2-Dec-2016 Equal Times
The ICSID decided in favour of El Salvador in a case brought by the US mining company Pacific Rim Cayman regarding a dispute over the granting of a mining licence.
Water for gold
5-Aug-2016 Loading Docs
Water for Gold tells the alarming story of how international trade law is leading us to trade our most basic rights to clean, safe water for access to gold.
Prosperous Mexican farms suck up water, leaving villages high and dry
24-May-2016 New York Times
Nafta is all about high-intensive-labor crops. Water extraction increased exponentially. Every year, farms bore farther into the aquifer, and scientists warn that they are reaching tainted water that is contaminated with arsenic and fluoride which is causing great harm.
NAFTA asparagus
6-May-2016 Crozet Gazette
After Peru signed a TPP-like free trade pact with the U.S. in 2007, it has become the largest exporter of fresh asparagus. But asparagus monoculture/agribusiness has resulted in water shortages in the Ica Valley.
Colombia: there’s no place for clean water under ’free trade’
15-Apr-2016 The Ecologist
The latest country to be hooked under ’free trade’ agreements is Colombia sued for tens of billions of dollars for valuing its national parks and the high-altitude Andean wetlands that provide 70% of the nation’s water above the profits of foreign corporations.
Protecting the Santurban páramo from Angostura mining project
18-Mar-2016 AIDA
High-altitude wetlands that provide drinking water to more than two million people could become one of the world’s biggest gold and silver mines.