CIEL Helps Protect the Rights of Indigenous Communities Displaced by the Ralco Dam along the Upper BíoBío River in Southern Chile
In the upcoming months, the reservoir of the Ralco dam, one of a series of dams along the Upper BíoBío River in Southern Chile, will destroy the pristine mountain ecosystem and will permanently and irreversibly disrupt the semi-nomadic lifestyle and cosmovision of the Mapuche/Pehuenche people. At the same time, the communities affected by the dam will attempt to reconstruct their lives and culture using resources and rights provided by a "friendly settlement" reached by them with the Chilean Government and approved by the Inter-American Human Rights Commission (IACHR). This is the aftermath of a decade-long struggle by indigenous communities and environmental groups in defense of their rights against the project sponsor (Endesa -- a formerly public but now privatized company), the Chilean government, and the International Finance Corporation (IFC).

CIEL provided legal assistance to the Pehuenche families in proceedings before the Inter-American Human Rights Commission, as well as before the International Finance Corporation's Compliance/Advisor Ombudsman Office.

The "friendly settlement" provides for Pehuenche families to receive reparations for relinquishing their legal rights to natural resources that will be flooded by the dams. For the Pehuenche, reparations symbolize the responsibility of the Chilean government under international law for human rights violations they have suffered. The families received rights over lands, technical support to promote agricultural productivity, educational scholarships, and monetary compensation in the order of US$300,000 per family. In turn, they agreed to transfer their rights to ancestral lands and to discontinue legal action.

The Chilean government also committed to implementing several measures of more general application. The most important commitments were to:

  • Strengthen national laws that guarantee respect for indigenous rights, including a constitutional reform that would culminate in legal recognition of Chile's indigenous peoples;

  • Ratification of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention 169 on indigenous peoples' rights;

  • Improve and strengthen legal processes for delineating the territory of the Mapuche/Pehuenche people and ensuring their meaningful participation in official development processes, including through the creation of a municipality in the Upper BíoBío; and

  • Promulgation of specific measures to ensure environmental protection of the Upper BíoBío, including guarantees of no other hydro-electric projects in the region, and community monitoring over the operation of the dam.


It remains to be seen whether the Government of Chile will honor its commitments and discharge its obligations under the "friendly settlement" approved by the IACHR.

To read an account of the case in context, see CIEL's Issue Brief on the Ralco Case. The legal documents of the case are also available below:


For more information, please contact Marcos Orellana.


This page last modified on 31 August 2004.