"NGO Coalition Boycotts Prior Consultation Process For Proposed Lao Dam", 24 August 2018

A coalition of NGOs...will boycott the prior consultation process for the proposed Pak Lay hydropower project in Laos.

“Save the Mekong coalition is boycotting the Pak Lay prior consultation because serious and outstanding concerns regarding each of the mainstream dams that have undergone the process to date — the Xayaburi, Don Sahong, and Pak Beng dams — remain unresolved,” the coalition said in a statement.

The group said that requests for information about the projects’ impacts expressed during their prior consultations were not formally addressed....

...Prior consultation is a required procedure under the 1995 Mekong Agreement by Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand....

...“Previous prior consultations have been regarded as a rubber stamp to satisfy community consultation obligations,” Wora Suk of the Thai Extraterritorial Obligation-Watch Working Group and a member of Save the Mekong, said in a statement. “In reality, these processes have not taken community concerns into account.”