Browse Cases

Proposed in the mid-2000s, the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipelines was a project to build a 731.4-mile-long twin pipeline from Bruderheim, Alberta to Kitimat, British Columbia. While its eastbound line would have carried 193,000 barrels of natural gas condensate per day, its westbound line would have moved 525,000 barrels of crude oil per day to a marine terminal, where it would be picked up by oil tankers destined for Asia. The initial budget for the project was $5.5 billion.

On 10 June 2014, the Guatemalan Congress approved Decree 19-2014, more commonly known as Plant Varieties Protection Bill or the Monsanto Law (because of Monsanto’s, a multinational company, promotion of the law) and it was planned to take effect on 26 September 2014.  The Monsanto Law outlawed the replanting, transportation, or selling of privatized seeds without permission, and made these actions punishable by one to four years in jail and a fine of 1,000 to 10,000 quetzals (130 to 1,300 US dollars).

Starting with Ecuador’s founding as a republic in 1822, the country’s
economic policy  oppressed Indigenous citizens through measures that led
to the concentration and destruction of Indigenous lands.  In 1986,
Luis Macas founded the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of
Ecuador (CONAIE) to advocate for the underrepresented Indigenous
Ecuadorians. CONAIE focused particularly on protecting land and water
rights of Indigenous communities. CONAIE leaders of the 1990s emphasized
demands for a plurinational state, collective rights, and territorial

Anti-fracking movements in Romania originated in February 2012 when Bulgarian activists, enthused from their recent victory over their government in anti-fracking legislation, contacted their Romanian counterparts. The Bulgarians informed the Romanians of the potential impending fracking in Romania and from this point on, the Romanian activists began using their Facebook group page to increase awareness of, and actively campaign against the dangers of fracking.

The Mi’kmaq first nations people are indigenous to what is now New Brunswick, Canada. The provincial government of New Brunswick holds all mineral rights throughout the province, making mining allowable wherever it chooses, including on indigenous land.

In 2013, Fuel extraction companies South Western Energy Resources Canada and Irving Oil proposed natural gas exploration of traditional Mi'kma'ki territory in New Brunswick called Signigtog. Gas extracted from the area would mostly be sent to the United States, but the environmental effects would remain.

Phulbari is a region in the northwest region of Bangladesh. It is an important agricultural region that is also home to low quality coal deposit. Several companies have proposed to use the open pit technique for mining the coal, which would displace thousands of people, many of them indigenous people. The proposed mining projects would destroy farmland, homes, and divert water sources to be used in the mining process.

The Grassy Narrows or Asubpeeschoseewagon First Nation is an indigenous community in Canada. The reservation was established by treaty with the Canadian government and British Crown in 1871 and is located 80 kilometers north of Kenora in northern Ontario. 

The traditional territory of the Asubpeeschoseewagon people includes the land, waters, and natural resources used, occupied, and owned by the First Nation. Corporate development has long compromised the health and sovereignty of the people.

The Puno Department is a high plateau region of southeastern Peru, nestled on the shores of Lake Titicaca and the Bolivian border. The people of this region are primarily indigenous Quechua and Aymara people who rely on a chiefly agricultural lifestyle based on quinoa, potatoes and alpacas. The region is also incredibly rich in mineral resources. Many land concessions have been made by the Peruvian government to international mining companies to extract these minerals. Between 2002 and 2010, the amount of concessions increased by 279% in the Puno department.

The land on the Big Mountain reservation has been disputed by the U.S. Government and the Navajo and Hopi tribes since 1882. This area in Black Mesa, Arizona, which was extremely rich in sulfur coal deposit, attracted mining companies and the government due to the potential profit. Mining began on the Navajo and Hopi land and started to increase greatly by the 1970s. Congress signed a relocation act in 1974, which would allow one company, Peabody Coal, to mine this area uninhibited. The reservation lands of Black Mesa were then to be used as strip mining sites for private U.S.

In April 2006, the United States and Peru signed a Free Trade Agreement (FTA), which they planned to implement on 1 February 2009. The United States required that Peru make certain regulatory changes in law to allow access to the Amazon rainforest before implementing the FTA. In late 2006, President Alan García passed Law 840, known as the “Law of the Jungle,” which undermined the collective property rights of indigenous groups by giving land concessions to foreign investors.

The Mi’Kmaq people of New Brunswick have always fished in the Miramichi Bay and River. On 17 September 1999, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the native fishing rights of Donald Marshall, who had been charged with fishing out of season, fishing without a license, and fishing with an illegal net. The "Marshall Decision" agreed on by the Supreme Court stated that its decision would uphold the honour and integrity of the Crown in its dealings with the Mi’Kmaq people to secure their peace and friendship. This decision caused chaos in New Brunswick.

The Frontenac Ventures Development Corporation received from the Ontario government in Canada a permit to begin exploratory drilling for uranium on 30,000 acres of Canadian Crown land in its eastern region of Sharbot Lake. In June 2007, the company began surveying.  The company planned to dig trenches, log the forest, and remove core mineral samples. 

In Orakei, Auckland, New Zealand, there is a coastal piece of land that overlooks Waitemata Harbour called Takaparawhau in Māori and Bastion Point in English. Before the colonization of the land by the British Crown, it provided shelter, rich fishing and farming areas for the Ngāti Whātua people, a Māori iwi (tribe). 

On 6 August 1996, Argentinean General Fuel Company, also known as Compañía General de Combustibles (CGC), signed a contract with the Ministry of Energy and Mines in Ecuador without consultation of Kichwa natives of Sarayaku. The contract allowed CGC to exploit and explore 200,000 hectares of Block 23. 

In March of 1988, U.S. Ecology, a national dump operating company, decided upon Ward Valley, California as the most desired location for building a new nuclear waste dump. Because this was federal land in the state, the government of California needed to buy Ward Valley land from the Bureau of Land Management in order to give U.S. Ecology the rights to build the dump. The Valley, however, is located in the Mojave Desert, an area home to an endangered species of desert tortoise considered sacred to a number of Native American tribes.

On 1 October 2012, residents of Waiheke Island, New Zealand, protested against the installation of two pre-constructed buildings in Wharetana Bay, a historic site over 170 years old that is home to a Maori burial ground. This burial ground makes the bay a site of both archaeological and cultural importance.

The Ogharefe people of Nigeria suffered from the effects of oil pollution and oil exploration. The Ogharefe community was afflicted with a number of health issues, ranging from skin rashes to stomach ailments, from the gas flares and release of "oil production water." Additional damage from oil production included heavy metals in the water, the eroding of iron roofs due to corrosive ash from gash flares, and the decline of productive fishing ponds and farming land.

In February 2010, U.S.-based Newmont Mining Company proposed a joint venture with the Peruvian company Mina Buenaventura to build the Conga mine, a new gold mine, in the Cajamarca region of Peru. Newmont proposed investing $4.8 billion in the project, the largest investment in Peru’s history, and the mine would become the second largest gold mine in the world. Newmont hoped to begin production in either 2014 or 2015, upon getting permission from the Peruvian government. Newmont submitted an environmental impact study for the Conga mine, which the Peruvian government approved. 

In the 1950s the Eisenhower administration enacted the Relocation and Termination programs in regard to American Indian federal policy. The first part meant that Native Americans were to relocate from their respective reservations into big cities. In doing this, Native Americans would lose the unity of the immediate communities as they individually integrated as citizens into separate cities. Meanwhile, the reservation lands would be liquidated into the hands of the federal government. The second part, termination, was a broader result of the relocation.

The right to Aboriginal reserve land has been a contested issue throughout Canadian history, but perhaps one of the most disturbing violations of Aboriginal land rights is illustrated through the Lubicon Cree, a First Nations band in northern Alberta.

The First Nations people respect water and consider it a live giving force.

During the 1970s, when Brazil was ruled by a military dictatorship, the proposal of building several hydroelectric dams on the Xingu River was first presented. These dams were suggested as a way to increase energy supply to Brazil. The location of these proposed dams, along the Xingu River, was within the Brazilian Amazon in the region of Para, Brazil. The proposal was eventually put on hold, due to controversy regarding the dams’ potential location on idigenous land.

On August 15, 2011, some 1000 indigenous peoples from the Isiboro Secure Park (known by its Spanish Acronym TIPNIS) in Bolivia began their protest march against a highway project through the park and their traditional homes.  The 500km march from the Amazonian town of Trinidad to La Paz was organized by many indigenous leaders, including Fernando Vargas, president of TIPNIS Native Communities, and Rosario Barradas of the Conference of Indigenous People.

Since the 1920s, phosphorite mining has polluted the air and water of Estonia. The former Soviet Union republic is rich in phosphorite deposits, which can be used to make phosphorus fertilizers. In the 1960s, the Soviet Union began exploiting Estonia’s deposits with large-scale mining operations. The ensuing problems were caused not by the phosphorite, but by the layers of oil shale that were removed in the process of extraction. The excess shale was typically dumped close to the mine, where it would continually catch fire and pollute the groundwater.

The construction of the Lemoniz Nuclear Power Plant started in the 1970s, as the power company Iberduero Basque Utility planned to build several nuclear plants on the Basque coast. There had been an international oil crisis during the time, and the effect of the oil shortage had huge detrimental consequences for the Spanish economy. The central government was interested in investing in alternative energy such as nuclear power. The central planning of the Lemoniz power plant began in 1972 when the government gave provisional approval to build a nuclear power plant in Lemoniz.