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Article

21 Nov 2011

Author:
Sarah Anderson, J. Alejandro Artiga-Purcell, Rebecca Dreyfus, Manuel Perez-Rocha, Institute for Policy Studies

Mining for Profits in International Tribunals

Corporate lawsuits against governments over resource rights continue to increase. In the context of high global prices for natural resources, governments seeking to increase the benefits of those resources for their own people are facing an increasing number of corporate lawsuits. Under free trade agreements and bilateral investment treaties, foreign investors have the right to file such “investor-state” lawsuits in international tribunals to demand compensation for government actions that reduce their profits. This newly updated edition of “Mining for Profits” finds that at the most frequently used tribunal, the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), 43 of 137 pending “investor-state” cases are related to oil, mining, or gas. By contrast, one year ago there were only 32 such cases and 10 years ago there were only 3.[refers to Pacific Rim]

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