Q24N (VOA) On Monday an international tribunal ruled in Costa Rica’s favor in a dispute with Canadian mining company Infinito Gold over the 2010 cancellation of a gold concession on environmental grounds.
“The government is pleased to inform the country that Costa Rica has won the case brought by Infinito Gold,” Casa Presidencial said in a statement.
The company had taken the case to the World Bank’s International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes based in Washington D.C., claiming nearly US$400 million in compensation from Costa Rica for the cancellation of the mining contract at Crucitas in Cutris de San Carlos near the border with Nicaragua.
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The “tribunal concluded that it was inappropriate to award damages to Infinito Gold Ltda,” noted Casa Presidencial.
Costa Rica’s Legislative Assembly banned open-pit mining at Crucitas in 2010 shortly after a local court cancelled Infinito Gold’s contract awarded in 2008 by former president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Oscar Arias, that would have allowed mining on a 261-hectare piece of land which includes 191 hectares of primary forest — the last in the country — which would have been felled.
But in 2010, after intense lobbying by environmentalists and politicians, a Costa Rican court voided the permit citing environmental concerns and irregularities in granting the permit.
In the meantime, “illegal miners, mostly of Nicaraguan nationality, have been extracting gold from the area,” Casa Presidencial said in a statement, also announcing the launch of a “special police operation” to crack down on the illegal mining.
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Environmental groups said the illegal miners who extract the gold using dangerous chemicals such as mercury and cyanide.
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