Barrick has made a commitment to shareholders to publish a report on how its proposed Pascua-Lama Project respects (1) the right to water, as defined in the General Comment 15 by the Committee monitoring the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) of the United Nations (UN); (2) the precautionary principle, as defined in the Río Declaration on Environment and Development; and (3) the World Bank guideline on public consultation and disclosure of information during an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) (OP 4.01). For this purpose, Barrick engaged Environmental Resources Management (ERM) to investigate its proposed management of water issues and the process it used in stakeholder consultation for the Pascua-Lama Project.