A Colombian arbitration court ruled in favor of Ecopetrol in a legal battle with Pacific Rubiales over windfall payments from one of the country's top-producing oil fields. The arbitration tribunal ruled that Pacific Rubiales must pay 100% of windfall income from the Quifa oil field to Ecopetrol after production in the Quifa field reached the 5 MMbbl of oil benchmark. Pacific Rubiales had offered to pay 60%. The court essentially upheld the legality of a clause in a contract between Pacific Rubiales, which operates the field, and Ecopetrol, which has control of the field
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Mayans' lawsuit against HudBay over shootings and rapes at mine in Guatemala to proceed in Canadian courts TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - Feb. 25, 2013) - In an important precedent-setting development for the accountability of Canadian mining companies for alleged overseas human rights abuses, victims of rape and murder at a Guatemalan mine are now able to sue a Canadian mining company in Canadian courts.
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Amidst a context of war, social and grassroots organizations throughout Colombia have generated diverse initiatives and experiences of peace, resisting permanent threats and attacks, building community, and creating through their actions and expressions the possibility for a dignified life.
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By Mauro Giormenti, in Columbia. The entire Department of Arauca is under a general strike against the government, the multi-national oil companies, and the repression of civil resistance to the visit by President Santos to the region.
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On 13 February 2013, three pellets were fired at the vehicle of Father Alberto Franco, a prominent human rights defender and Executive Secretary of the Comisión Intereclesial de Justicia y Paz (Inter-Church Commission for Justice and Peace CIJP).
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Workplace hazards, fairness for subcontracted workers top union demands Workers at the Colombian mine that provides coal to NB Power’s plant in Belledune are on strike as of February 7th. The strike marks the first workers’ action to stop work at the mine in the union’s 22 year history. Sintracarbón, the union representing workers at the Cerrejón mine, the world’s largest open-pit coal mine, in La Guajira, Colombia, decided to strike in light of the company’s failure to meet their demands.
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Background "A strike for human dignity"
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U.S. Representatives Henry “Hank” Johnson, James McGovern, George Miller, Sam Farr, Rosa DeLauro, Janice Schakowsky, and Barbara Lee sent a letter to Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos expressing concern over threats faced by Colombian land rights leaders.
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The Political Mass Movement of Central-Eastern Colombia have publicly declared an indefinite general strike which began at 6am on February 12th, 2013.
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Colombia’s recent passage of a constitutional amendment that expands military jurisdiction in cases of human rights violations is a major setback for justice. The reform would allow grave human rights crimes to be investigated and tried by the military justice system, in direct conflict with years of jurisprudence of Colombia’s high courts and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
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