Argentina

News release: This week, Canadian taxpayers will cover the costs of eleven journalists from eight Latin American countries – and Mongolia – to attend the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada’s (PDAC) 2012 conference. This appears to be another attempt on the part of Canadian authorities to manage the message instead of seriously addressing the roots of mine conflicts in countries such as Argentina, Honduras, Guatemala, Peru, and Ecuador.

Argentine Federal Prosecutor Gustavo Gómez describes what he calls the cycle of corruption (círculo cerrado): companies are allowed to operate without adequate regard for the environment and subsequently use their enormous profits to ensure ever-increasing impunity. Mr. Gómez firmly believes that his office is best employed in prosecuting company directors as the intellectual authors of environmental crimes – feasible under Argentinean law, but difficult to do even under relatively progressive governments.

A number of Argentinean universities have refused to accept donations from mining companies and Argentine Federal Prosecutor Gustavo Gómez calls on Canadian institutions to carefully look at company practices when considering offers of this type of funding.

The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court was adopted in 1998 and can be viewed as a precedent, according to Argentine Federal Prosecutor Gustavo Gómez, for the establishment of an international environmental crimes court. He believes such a body is essential to ending the impunity that multi-national companies causing large-scale, long-term environmental damage enjoy. He explains how this dream could come true.