Human Rights & Environment Program Accomplishments

Listed below is a brief summary of some of the Human Rights & Environment Program accomplishments:

• Mining and Affected Peruvian Communities
• Atlantic Fishing Communities
• Supporting Afro-Colombians in the U.S.
• Supporting Indigenous Peoples in Paraguay
• International Human Rights Tribunal (Brazil)
• Amicus Brief in Support of Mexican Environmental Defenders
• Water Rights in Bolivia
• Amicus Brief in Support of Burmese Residents
• Ayahuasca Patent
• Awas Tingni Amicus Brief, Inter-American Court of Human Rights
• The Philippine Indigenous Peoples' Rights Act (IPRA) of 1997
• World Bank China/Tibet Campaign
• Chad Cameroon Pipeline

Mining and Affected Peruvian Communities

In Peru, the National Coordinator of Peruvian Communities Affected by Mining requested CIEL towards the end of 2003 to assist in a complaint against the Peruvian government for violation of fundamental human rights, including right to life, right to health, right to property, and the right to organize.

CIEL is now directly representing mining-affected communities before the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights. The complaint documents 15 cases involving intoxication of children, illegal expulsion from lands, contamination of water, air and land, and other problems experienced by thousands of persons from indigenous and other local communities located near foreign and domestic mining projects.

In the San Mateo case, the Commission accepted CIEL's request for precautionary measures, thus setting a landmark contribution to recognizing the human rights and environment linkage to pollution-related impacts on human, and especially children's, health.

Atlantic Fishing Communities

CIEL helped Atlantic fishing communities in Colombia file a complaint before the World Bank's Inspection Panel in 2004. The complaint documented the detrimental effects of a sewage project in Cartagena de Indias. After a site visit and initial assessment, the inspection panel has embarked on a full investigation.

Supporting Afro-Colombians in the U.S.

Since 2001, CIEL has been providing logistical and financial support to Marino Cordoba, an Afro-Colombian leader from the National Association of Displaced Afro-Colombians (AFRODES), who is a political refugee in the USA.

We are assisting AFRODES to establish a Washington, DC-based organization to support the cause of Afro-Colombians' (and other South American minorities') community-based organizations working on human rights, community-based property rights, and environmental issues and concerns.

We are also advising AFRODES on their human rights and environment work before the Inter-American Human Rights System.

Supporting Indigenous Peoples in Paraguay

CIEL is providing legal advice on human rights and environment to Acotomodie, an organization based in Paraguay working to safeguard the last remaining forests of El Chaco, which is the critical habitat of the reportedly non-contacted Ayore peoples.

International Human Rights Tribunal (Brazil)

CIEL helped organize and participated actively as an official observer in the International Tribunal on Crimes Committed by Latifundiums in the northern Brazilian state of Pará held in October 2003. Pará has a history of the worst violence against landless peasants in Brazil.

The Tribunal sought to draw international and national attention to human rights violations and crimes against the environment. It condemned the state for its failure to protect its citizens and for its complicit involvement in violation of fundamental human rights. For more information on the Tribunal In Brazil.

Amicus Brief in Support of Mexican Environmental Defenders

On October 25, 2001, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) received a complaint invoking the international responsibility of the United Mexican States for the illegal detention and torture of Rodolfo Montiel Flores and Teodoro Cabrera García, and for their imprisonment following a trial that failed to respect the standards of due process.

CIEL and the Center for Human Rights and Environment (CEDHA) closely followed the legal proceedings and discussion concerning the case. Both organizations filed an amicus brief to the IACHR on August 15, 2002, which was then transmitted to both parties of the case on December 5, 2002.

Montiel and Cabrera, founders of the Organization of Peasant Ecologists, worked towards halting logging operations in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero. They were arrested by the Mexican military in May 1999 and sentenced to six and ten years in prison, respectively, for weapons and marijuana possession. In April 2000, the farmers were awarded the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize, the Sierra Club's "Chico Mendes prize", the "Don Sergio Méndez Arceo" human rights prize, and the "Roque Dalton prize."

On October 19, 2001, human rights attorney, Digna Ochoa, who first represented Montiel and Cabrera, was found shot to death in her office in Mexico City. She had previously helped document the evidence of her client's torture at the hands of the Mexican military. She received numerous threats prior to her murder. On November 8, Mexican President Fox ordered the release of Montiel and Cabrera from prison. However, this did not absolve them under the Mexican judicial system.

The IACHR declared the complaint admissible in February 27, 2004 and will continue their analysis of the merits of the case.

Water Rights in Bolivia

CIEL is working on behalf of individuals and communities in Cochabamba to ensure their rights to water. In the late 1990s, the World Bank forced Bolivia to privatize the public water system of its third-largest city, Cochabamba, by threatening to withhold debt relief and other development assistance.

Within weeks of taking over the water system, Bechtel imposed huge rate hikes on local water users. Families living on the local minimum wage of $60 per month were given bills equal to as much as 25 percent of their monthly income. The rate hikes sparked massive citywide protests that the Bolivian government sought to end by declaring a state of martial law and the deployment of thousands of soldiers and police.

More than a hundred people were injured and one 17-year-old boy was killed. In April 2000, as anti-Bechtel protests continued to grow, the company's managers abandoned the project. Bechtel is now suing Bolivia for $25 million in "lost profits." The International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), an international arbitral tribunal housed at the World Bank, is hearing Bechtel's legal action. For more information, please see the following announcements:

• Three Hundred Citizen Groups Call on Secret World Bank to Open Up Bechtel Case Against Bolivia
• Secretive World Bank Tribunal Bans Public and Media Participation in Bechtel Lawsuit Over Access to Water

Amicus Brief in Support of Burmese Residents

On Thursday, March 1, 2001 CIEL filed an amicus brief on behalf of four environmental groups in support of Earthrights International's appeal in the John Doe et al. v. Unocal et al case before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. In this case, local Burmese residents were seeking to hold Unocal liable for its support of human rights abuses by the Burmese military.

The judge in the lower court found that Unocal "knew" of the human rights abuses, but ruled that to be liable under the Alien Tort Claims Act, Unocal had to be a more active participant in the abuses. CIEL's brief, which was filed on behalf of the Sierra Club, Global Exchange, and Rainforest Action Network, explained how the lower court erred in applying this standard to Unocal. Consistent with CIEL's arguments, The U.S. Court of Appeals held that the plaintiffs could proceed to trial.

Ayahuasca Patent

Ayahuasca is a naturally occurring sacred plant that has been used in religious rituals for generations by indigenous peoples throughout the Amazon; however the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued a patent over the Ayahuasca plant to a U.S. citizen. When the Coordinating Body of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA), and the Amazon Alliance challenged the patent, CIEL provided these groups with vital legal representation.

The long-term goal is to use this case as a precedent for revising the legal system to protect community-based property rights, and to provide proper legal incentives for biodiversity conservation.

For more information, visit Biodiversity program page page on the case.

Awas Tingni Amicus Brief, Inter-American Court of Human Rights

In cooperation with the International Human Rights Law Group, CIEL filed an Amicus Curiae (friend of the court) brief on 31 May, 1999 on behalf of the Awas Tingni Mayagna indigenous community in its case against the Republic of Nicaragua in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

The amicus brief emphasized international laws and other normative standards, as well as insights and findings from field-based research, that support the community's efforts to compel the Government of Nicaragua to delineate the perimeter of their indigenous territory, and to provide legal recognition of their indigenous property rights on a group basis. The case weaves together indigenous, environmental, and broader human rights issues. The case has created a precedent supporting such linkages in the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

The Philippine Indigenous Peoples' Rights Act (IPRA) of 1997

In collaboration with the Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center - Kasama sa Kalikasan (LRC-KSK), a leading Philippine public interest law NGO, CIEL provided support before, during and after an en banc hearing of the Philippine Supreme Court of an expedited constitutional challenge by the mining industry to the Indigenous Peoples' Rights Act of 1997.The IPRA potentially benefits an estimated ten million indigenous peoples in the biodiversity-rich uplands of the Philippines.

CIEL helped draft an amicus curiae brief on behalf of 113 indigenous leaders and prominent Filipino supporters, and assisted lawyers with the preparation of arguments and a Final Memoranda for the Supreme Court. In December 2000, the Philippine Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the IPRA, and cited the groundbreaking research of CIEL Senior Attorney, Owen J. Lynch, in its decision.

Massachusetts/Burma Selective Purchasing Case

CIEL participated as an Amici (a friend of the court) in the State of Massachusetts' appeal to the United States Supreme Court relating to Massachusetts' selective purchasing legislation. Massachusetts passed a law prohibiting state contracts with companies doing business in Burma. Corporate interests challenged the law and obtained a ruling in the Court of Appeals that found the Massachusetts law unconstitutional.

CIEL reviewed and signed on to the arguments presented in an amicus brief submitted on behalf of Massachusetts. The Harvard Program on Human Rights and the Harrison Institute prepared the brief. The brief argued that international human rights law, as adopted by the US, authorizes state action to promote the universal enforcement of human rights. Furthermore, it argued that the Massachusetts law is a legitimate response to the Burmese military regime's human rights violations.

It will set a critical precedent for the ability of States to pass legislation "enforcing" human rights through selective purchasing laws. On June 2000, the Supreme Court affirmed the lower court's decisions, holding that the Massachusetts law infringed upon the President's power to set foreign policy and had been pre-empted by the 1997 federal law that imposed a ban on new US investments in Burma.

World Bank China/Tibet Campaign

CIEL has played a leading role in the mobilization of a global campaign to challenge a World Bank-financed project that would resettle Chinese farmers into an area that is traditionally considered to be a part of Tibet.

CIEL has provided strategic advice, analysis and advocacy on behalf of the international campaign that brought together the international Bank-watching community, environmental groups, Tibet-support organizations, and human rights organizations, members of Congress and Parliament, and musicians in vocal and effective opposition to the project.

With the Bank Information Center, CIEL drafted a claim to the World Bank Inspection Panel on behalf of local Tibetans who feared for their lives if the project went forward. The claim was filed by the International Campaign for Tibet, and significantly impacted the outcome.

As a result of this project, the discourse on human rights has been dramatically expanded within the Bank. The campaign encouraged the highest degree of civil society engagement with the Bank in years, and provoked an unprecedented institutional crisis. It also generated significant press coverage, with the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Washington Times all issuing editorials urging the Bank not to move forward with the project, citing the human rights and environmental concerns. CIEL published an article on the human rights and environmental implications of the China/Tibet project, "The World Bank's Tibet Troubles," in Multinational Monitor (May 1999).

On July 7th, 2000, the World Bank Board of Executive Directors, in a highly unusual move, rejected Bank Management's support of the China Western Poverty Reduction Project.

For more information visit the International Financial Institutions program page and final press release.

Chad Cameroon Pipeline

The $3.7 billion Chad/Cameroon Oil and Pipeline Project is currently the largest private sector investment in Africa. The project involved the drilling of 300 oil wells in Chad, extraction of 225,000 barrels of oil per day (peak production), and the construction of a 650-mile long pipeline through Chad and Cameroon. The pipeline route cuts through farmland and natural forests (including the territory of indigenous peoples in southern Cameroon), en route to an offshore terminal in the Atlantic Ocean, where the oil will be loaded onto tankers for consumption in Europe and North America.

On June 6, 2000, the Board of Directors of IBRD, IDA, and IFC approved lending for the Chad/Cameroon Oil and Pipeline Project and two related capacity-building projects, one each in Chad and Cameroon for petroleum, environmental, and social aspects associated with petroleum development and export. The recipients of World Bank support are the government of Chad, the government of Cameroon, and a multinational consortium of oil company's lead by Exxon Mobil. The consortium has negotiated agreements which place the project beyond the reach of national laws in both countries, and which insulate the oil companies from liability in the event of disaster.

On December 16, 2002, the World Bank's Board of Executive Directors approved the Inspection Panel's recommendation to conduct an investigation into claims related to the project. Non-governmental organizations have consistently raised concerns about this project, and feel that these concerns have not been adequately or meaningfully addressed by the World Bank Group. The concerns include technical problems relating to social and environmental impacts, as well as governance concerns that go to the viability of this project and its ability to meet the goal of poverty reduction. Delphine Djiraibe, Chadian lawyer, 2004 RFK Human Rights Awardee and former Human Rights & Environment Law Fellow at CIEL, has worked with other staff members to support local communities in Chad and Cameroon in their demand for a moratorium on the pipeline project until these concerns can be properly addressed.

Due in a large part to civil society pressure during project preparation, the World Bank Group took extraordinary measures to establish two independent monitoring bodies to reinforce the social and environmental oversight of the project: the International Advisory Group and the External Compliance Monitoring Group.

The pipeline began operations on July 2003, as oil began flowing from Doba, Chad to Kribi, Cameroon.

For more information visit the International Financial Institutions page.

To learn more about the Human Rights & Environment Program accomplishments, visit the Human Rights Research & Publications