Issue 5, May 2004

1. Harken-Costa Rica Investment Dispute Reveals Dangers of Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA)

2. Amnesty International Corrects Misrepresentations Made by BP Concerning the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Oil (BTC) Pipeline

3. Danish Export Credit Agency Adopt Equator Principles

Harken-Costa Rica Investment Dispute Reveals Dangers of Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA)

An investment dispute between the Costa Rican government and Harken Costa Rica Holdings (HCRH) – an oil company with close ties to Harken Energy of Texas, President Bush’s former oil company – reveals the dangers to environmental protection posed by CAFTA, which is set to be signed on May 28 in Washington, D.C.

HCRH obtained a concession agreement to drill for oil off Costa Rica's Caribbean, including the environmentally sensitive Talamanca coast.  After the Costa Rican government denied HCRH’s application for permission to drill based on the environmental impact assessment being incompatible with the country's environmental laws, the company tried to bring an international suit against the government.  HCRH demanded more than $57 billion in compensation – three times the country's GDP. 

The Costa Rican government was able to insist that the case be heard instead in Costa Rican courts.  Under CAFTA, however, the government would have had no such choice.

• To view a joint Friends of the Earth-NRDC fact sheet on the Harken-Costa Rica Investment Dispute, go to: http://www.foe.org/camps/intl/harken.pdf
• For more information, contact David Waskow at (202) 222-0716 or dwaskow@foe.org.

Amnesty International Corrects Misrepresentations Made by BP Concerning the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Oil (BTC) Pipeline

Amnesty International was compelled to correct misrepresentations made by BP in a May 21 letter to a UK government agency, which is investigating the company’s alleged breaches of governmentally-backed standards for corporate conduct with respect to the BTC pipeline.

Amnesty’s letter was in response to BP correspondences that suggests – incorrectly – Amnesty is playing a proactive role in monitoring and operationalizing BP’s human rights commitments for the BTC pipeline. 

BP’s misrepresentations concerning Amnesty appeared in a response to a complaint lodged by Friends of the Earth in April 2002, which charged the BP-led oil consortium breached the “OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises.”  The Guidelines complaint is still pending with the UK government.

• To request an electronic copy of the Amnesty letter, please contact Colleen Freeman at (202) 222-0718 or cfreeman@foe.org.
• For more information on the OECD Guidelines complaint, go to: http://www.foe.org/new/releases/0403btc.html

Danish Export Credit Agency Adopt Equator Principles

Eksport Kredit Fonden (EKF), the Danish export credit agency, recently joined a group of 21 private banks that have adopted the Equator Principles, which are a set of standards for project finance modeled on the social and environmental safeguard policies of the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation.  EKF is the first export credit agency to adopt the Principles.

• For more information, contact Michelle Chan-Fishel at (510) 848-1155 ext. 315 or mchan@foe.org