Each year, international financial institutions (IFIs) provide governments and companies billions of dollars to undertake development projects. Ostensibly, the projects are aimed at improving the welfare of community members through better education and roads, improved health care and governance, and greater access to water and energy. Some projects are also responsible for severe environmental degradation and egregious human rights violations. Many of the largest institutions—the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation, the Inter-American, Asian and Africa Development Banks, and the United States’ Overseas Private Investment Corporation—have created accountability mechanisms to ensure that the projects are developed and implemented in accordance with environmental, labor, and human rights policy. The clinic has worked with partners in a variety of contexts to hold corporations to account when their activities threaten the human rights of local communities.
In 2010, the clinic partnered with San-Francisco-based Accountability Counsel (AC) and a coalition of Mexican NGO’s and indigenous villagers to file a human rights complaint against a U.S.-backed hydroelectric project. Located in Oaxaca, Mexico, the project is financed by the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), a U.S. government agency. Conduit Capital Partners began construction although local villagers had not been consulted fully or informed of the health and environmental impacts of the project, which threatened to contaminate local drinking water and fishing areas to produce energy for private companies. The complaint resulted in the suspension of the project. This news story further details the clinic’s work on the project.