In 2008, the Salvadoran government denied environmental and exploitation permits to Pacific Rim, a Canadian mining company, for its El Dorado gold mine, citing environmental and public health worries. Pacific Rim, which has since been acquired by Canadian-Australian company OceanaGold, responded by filing a claim against El Salvador with the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), a supranational arbitration tribunal housed at the World Bank Group in Washington, D.C.
When Pacific Rim initiated proceedings in 2009, the company based its case on Salvadoran investment legislation and on DR-CAFTA, the free trade agreement between the United States, the Dominican Republic, and five Central American countries, including El Salvador. The move required some ingenuity, as Canada is not party to DR-CAFTA. At the time, it was also not party to the ICSID Convention, which Canada didn't ratify until 2013.
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