An international tribunal has dismissed a multinational mining company’s demand that the government of El Salvador pay $250m (£205m) in compensation for refusing to allow it to dig for gold in the tiny Central American country where the slogan, “No to mining, yes to life” has become a national rallying cry. The tribunal, which ruled that OceanaGold’s case was without merit, also ordered the firm to pay the Salvadoran government $8m to cover the majority of the country’s legal costs.

“For the people of Cabanas who have been fighting to defend their environment, it is mission accomplished,” said El Salvador’s attorney general, Douglas Meléndez Ruiz. “It is an important step for the country to have been victorious in this lawsuit.”... The verdict marks the culmination of more than seven years of deliberations, largely behind closed doors, at the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID)... El Salvador...maintained throughout the case that OceanaGold failed to meet regulatory requirements for the requested permits....[and] lacked crucial environmental permissions...