(January 8, 2008) China’s Yangtze Power Company posted a 47 percent rise in “profit” last year, though critics, including Probe International, argue these profits would vanish if the company were forced to pay its share of the project’s rising environmental costs.
PI Policy: The problem with environmental impact assessments
(January 6, 2008) Environmental impact assessments (EIAs) are now standard practice for dam builders. Probe International’s Grainne Ryder and Patricia Adams explain how this seemingly positive development actually undermines citizen rights and harms the environment.
Xinhua: Three Gorges dam tourism hits record high in 2007
(January 6, 2008) China’s Three Gorges dam attracted a record high of 1.25 million tourists last year, according to state tourism developers, Xinhua reported on January 1.
Xinhua: China to study pollution sources
(January 6, 2008) China will conduct its first national survey of pollution sources in some of the world’s dirtiest cities, Xinhua reported last week.
China Minsheng teams up with Three Gorges Financial Company, Royal Bank of Canada
(January 4, 2008) China Minsheng Banking Corporation has received state regulatory approval to set up a fund management company with Royal Bank of Canada and Three Gorges Financial Company.
From odious debt to odious finance: Avoiding the externalities of a functional odious debt doctrine
(January 1, 2008) This Article looks at the generally agreed upon characteristics of the odious debt doctrine and considers the unintended consequences and externalities that would ensue if this doctrine were ever made regularly operative. The enlivened scholarly debate surrounding the odious debt doctrine assumes that debt is the sole finance vehicle for despotic governments. This is simply not the case.
Sovereign debt and social rights – legal reflections on a difficult relationship
(January 1, 2008) The relationship between the sovereign debt of developing countries and the protection of social rights in those countries has received a lot of attention from an economic, political and moral perspective, but relatively little has been written about the legal side of this relationship.
A Convenient Untruth: Fact and Fantasy in the Doctrine of Odious Debts
(January 1, 2008) The previous regime [in Iraq] accumulated a heavy burden of foreign debts to states which financed the tyrant’s wars against his people first, and then against our neighbors. The foreign loans helped him build a huge military apparatus and manufacture weapons of mass destruction, including chemical weapons which he used against the Iraqi people in Halabja. The loans supported his system of oppression and paid for his palaces and prisons during the war against Iran when Iraq’s oil revenue was extremely low.
Canada’s aid seeded China dam
(December 31, 2007) “The problems at the Three Gorges aren’t just a Chinese problem, as it’s often portrayed,” says Pat Adams of Probe International. “It’s a world-wide issue, with responsibility in other countries, too”
China’s massive dam project causes worry
(December 29, 2007) Residents in the Three Gorges area are concerned by an increase in landslides as the water level rises in the 410 mile-long reservoir. “Almost all my fears have come true,” says Dai Qing. “The landslides and cracks have made people migrants once again."
REVIEW Iraq’s debt relief: Procedure and potential implications for international debt relief
(December 28, 2007) Martin Weiss, an analyst with the Congressional Research Service, the public policy research arm of the U.S. Congress, has published an updated paper about the treatment of Iraq’s debts by creditor nations following the fall of Saddam Hussein.
Global Transparency Initiative calling for IFI policy overhaul
(December 28, 2007) Visit the civil society monitor Global Transparency Initiative’s (GTI) Transparency Charter to International Financial Institutions: Claiming Our Right to Know. The Charter is the GTI’s flagship statement of standards the GTI believes the information disclosure policies held by International Financial Institutions should conform to.
German Jubilee movement slams World Bank odious debts paper as “biased” and “misleading”
(December 28, 2007) The popular German grassroots Jubilee movement Erlassjahr has dismissed the World Bank paper on odious debts as biased and flawed.
China: New dam builder for the world
(December 28, 2007) China has embarked on a push to export its dam-building know-how to developing countries—even as it contends with environmental damage and social upheaval at home from the massive Three Gorges Dam.
Support grows for landmark debt cancellation bill
(December 28, 2007) The Jubilee Act for Responsible Lending and Expanded Debt Cancellation currently under consideration by the U.S. Congress, has gained support both in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. The debt-relief legislation seeks to dissolve the debts of 67 of the world’s poorest countries owed to the United States, other official creditors in the Paris Club, the IMF, World Bank and other international financial institutions.
Patricia Adams
Dai Qing
Fan Xiao
Lawrence Solomon
Mu Lan
Probe International
Lisa Peryman
Probe Media
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