Jonathan Kaufman's blog

Colombian paramilitaries. A company can be sued for aiding and collaborating with Colombian paramilitaries to kill civilians during the Colombian civil war, according to an Alabama district court’s recent decision.  On Friday, Judge R. David Proctor of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama issued an opinion in Jane Doe v. Drummond Corp., No. 09-CV-01041-RDP (N.D. Ala. Apr. 30, 2010) [pdf], allowing lawsuits to proceed alleging that the Drummond Corporation is responsible for the murder of Colombians by the AUC – a prominent paramilitary group – whom they hired to act as security and to pacify the area around Drummond’s mine and rail lines. Although this is not an ERI case, the decision could have important ramifications for ERI’s case against Chiquita.

The International Court of Justice handed down a troubling ruling this week in the case of Pulp Mills on the River Uruguay, a case in which Argentina contested Uruguay’s decision to allow the construction of highly polluting paper mills on the boundary river between the two countries without following proper consultative procedures.  In the ruling, the ICJ recognized that Uruguay had breached a treaty with Argentina and improperly authorized the construction of the mills, but found it unnecessary to order remediation, compensation, or mitigation measures for the pollution of the river.

The Centro de Derechos Humanos y Ambiente (CEDHA – Center for Human Rights and the Environment) has spearheaded Argentine resistance to the paper mills, whose effluents have further contaminated an already-beleaguered river and and whose emissions of air pollutants have impacted the recreational and tourism activities on which local Argentine communities rely.  CEDHA has covered the ICJ’s ruling in English and Spanish extensively, pointing out the disturbing role of the International Finance Corporation in financing the projects despite prior knowledge of numerous violations of environmental regulations and highlighting the dissenting opinion of Judge Yusuf Al-Khasawneh, which argued that the Court lacked capacity to evaluate highly technical environmental evidence and should have sought expert advice before rejecting Argentina’s claims.

A sign posted in a shop in Gualeguaychú, Entre Ríos, Argentina, that reads NO A LAS PAPELERAS - SI A LA VIDA -