Pacific Rim's fight against El Salvador

The Canadian gold-mining company Pacific Rim sent out a press release this week stating that the lawsuit it has brought against El Salvador is moving forward now that three arbitrators have been selected.:

An arbitration case brought by Pacific Rim Mining against the government of El Salvador will move ahead, as the arbitration tribunal has now been constituted, the company reported on Thursday.

Pacific Rim embarked on arbitration proceedings because of the government's failure to issue permits for the company's El Dorado project, three years after Pacific Rim submitted a mine design to authorities.

The company claims the government has breached international and Salvadoran law in its “improper failure to finalize the permitting process as it is required to do and to respect the company's and the enterprises' legal rights to develop mining activities in El Salvador”.

The company hopes it will face better success in an international business arbitration under DR-CAFTA than it has had in fighting the grass roots movement against mining in El Salvador. Recently members of the Roundtable Against Mining (la "Mesa"), were in Washington, D.C., to receive a human rights award for their efforts. You can watch a video report from the Real News Network which describes the award and the background of the dispute between Pacific Rim and El Salvador:


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