Pacific Rim’s suit against El Salvador is first of a kind under Cafta accord

When a Central American gold rush brought a Canadian mining company to El Salvador a few years ago, the company promised to stake a claim that would be as green as the lush hills.

But when the government of El Salvador, facing mounting public concern over the consequences of mining, failed to grant the company the final permit it needed, Pacific Rim sought to extract a different kind of green: $77 million from the nation’s treasury as compensation for lost profits.

The Pacific Rim case, now before a World Bank court in Washington, is the first of its kind to come under the Central America Free Trade Agreement that was approved in 2005, all sides in the dispute say.

Original source: New York Times