The mission of the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) is to use our comprehensive legal expertise in public international law, institutions, and processes to protect human health and the global environment. A cross-cutting issue, water is integrated into several of CIEL's program areas, including primarily Human Rights and Environment, Biological Diversity, Trade and Sustainable Development and International Financial Institutions. Our work includes:
- Promoting the right to water in national legal systems and in relevant international legal forums
- Working extensively in three areas of the World Trade Organization that are of primary importance to water resource management—trade in goods, trade in services and agriculture
- Improving the social and environmental practices of international financial institutions with respect to water-related decision-making, including the ongoing privatization of water services
- Tracking and monitoring a host of regional and bilateral trade and investment regimes—all with potential impacts on water resource management.
Illustrative water resource management global projects
BioBio River in Southern Chile. On behalf of the indigenous Pehuenche families in Chile, CIEL filed a petition to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights seeking reparations because their human rights were being violated by the construction of several dams along the Bio-Bio River. The largest of these dams, the Ralco dam, will displace these 700 Indians, the last group of Mapuche/Pehuenche Indians who continue their traditional lifestyle on their ancestral lands.
CIEL's legal action at the Inter-American Commission forced the Chilean government to negotiate a precedent-setting settlement that we expect will influence dam-resettlement conditions worldwide. This settlement will be monitored by the Commission and involves:
- A promise to attempt to reform Chile's constitution to secure the protection of indigenous rights
- Compensation directly to the displaced families, including land, educational scholarships, and US$300,000 per extended family
- The creation of a municipality whereby the Mapuche/Pehuenche will have local control over its ancestral territory.
The Philippines. Tanggol Kalikasan, one of CIEL's partners in the Environmental Justice Project in the Philippines, recently won local government action for the conservation and sustainable development of an important local natural resource area, the 65,000 hectare Taal Volcano Protected Landscape. This area, which includes a lake-within-a-volcano-within-a-lake, contains endemic species such as the world's only freshwater sardines and “sea” snake. This lake is one of the largest freshwater lakes in the Philippines , is surrounded by populated areas, and is the location of many economic and tourist activities. With CIEL's assistance, the process is under way to achieving a multi-stakeholder-generated management plan that contains clear and timely prescriptions for fishing gear, the role of women, lake biodiversity , and fish cages – all critical components to the local communities' participation in local resource management and to sustainable protection of this critical resource.
Bolivia. CIEL provided legal representation to water users in Cochabamba, Bolivia who were affected by a failed privatization scheme and rate hikes, before an arbitral tribunal administered by the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).
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