EDLC Enlists Holland & Knight to Represent the Communities
In 2005, the leaders of COCAICH, working closely with International Rivers, a non-governmental organization based in the United States, requested EDLC to find an American law firm to represent them in the upcoming proceedings before the Verification Commission.
The law firm of Holland & Knight agreed to take on the case. The firm’s team of lawyers is headed by Washington D.C. partner Enrique Gomez-Pinzon, an international commercial negotiator, and Tallahassee partner Elizabeth Bevington, a commercial litigator. The team has included two dozen associates, partners, paralegals and foreign trainees from eight of the firm’s offices. The legal team assembled by Holland & Knight, and the work that the team has performed on behalf of the dam-affected communities, may well represent the single greatest pro bono effort in American legal history by a firm on behalf of clients in a developing country.
The Negotiation Process
The lawyers pushed to convene the long overdue first meeting of the Verification Commission. In July 2005, the government announced the formation of the Commission, and the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank were invited to participate. The first meeting of the Commission finally took place at the end of that year with both banks in attendance.
But it was not until many months later, when the lawyers obtained the direct personal involvement and leadership of Guatemalan Vice President Eduardo Stein Barillas in the negotiation process, that the government and COCAHICH signed an agreement establishing the framework for the identification, verification and reparation of the damages and losses suffered by communities. Among other things, the parties agreed to identify which communities were affected by Chixoy and how they were affected, and to create mechanisms for repairing any damages and for monitoring and verifying the fulfillment of those reparations commitments.
The agreement further provided for the creation of a new Roundtable to oversee the process, with facilitation provided by Roberto Menendez, a representative of the Organization of American States. The Roundtable in turn created three Technical Commissions to do the work described above, aided by a multidisciplinary technical team of professionals and experts in diverse fields.
A resolution in sight?
The government of Guatemala, under a new administration, renewed its agreement with the Chixoy-affected communities in 2008, confirming the need to quantify the damages and losses caused by the construction of the dam. A reparations plan was then developed by the government and affected communities and signed by the government in April 2010.
The plan called for a payment of $150 million to the communities for damages and losses, with the construction and repair of hundreds of homes, improvement of roads, new water and sewage systems, and other infrastructure projects. The agreement also calls for the implementation of a management plan for the Chixoy Basin based on integrated watershed management, including reforestation with native plants, establishing an ecological flow adequate for the basin, and guarantees of minimum water quantity and quality.
The Guatemalan Congress approved an initial amount of $10 million for the compensation of affected communities for the year 2011, but the President has not yet signed the final agreement. Now in its sixth year of work on the case, the team at Holland & Knight continues its vigorous representation of the communities, urging that justice finally be done. The finish line is hopefully now in sight.
Maya Achi of Guatemala
- Carlos Chen Osorio, leader, Coordinating Committee of Communities Affected by the Chixoy Dam