ELAW E-Bulletin Archive

ELAW Executive Director Bern Johnson joins Diana McCaulay, CEO and founder of the Jamaica Environment Trust, for a panel discussion at the Hazel Wolf Film Festival in Seattle.

Netsanet Demissie was released from an Ethiopian prison on March 28, after nearly two and a half years in jail.

KLCC-FM News Director Tripp Sommer interviews ELAW staff attorney Jennifer Gleason and Chilean lawyer Andres Pirazzoli about promoting renewable energy in Chile, and protecting Patagonia.

A Canadian company prospecting for oil and gas is laying down lines of explosives for "seismic testing" in a remote area of the central Peruvian Amazon. ELAW partners are working to protect indigenous peoples from this ill-advised plan.

Staff Scientist Mark Chernaik reveals that a multinational mining company`s environmental impact assessment (EIA) for a proposed bauxite mine in India is cut and pasted from an EIA for a mining project in Russia!

November 12, 2007 -- Public protests rocked Addis Ababa two years ago following a contentious election. Thousands were arrested. One hundred thirty one opposition leaders, journalists and civil society leaders faced the death penalty in a trial that began in May 2006. Currently, two years after they were arrested, ELAW partner Netsanet Demissie, and anti-poverty activist Daniel Bekele, remain in jail, awaiting their verdicts.

September 13, 2007 — The UN General Assembly announced today the adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. ELAW partner Hector Huertas, a Kuna Indian from Panama, worked on the draft declaration for 10 years.

July 11, 2007 -- ELAW is celebrating the Malaysian government’s decision to scrap plans for a polluting incinerator in Broga. The government will instead focus on reducing wastes. ELAW scientists worked with partners in Malaysia to convince the court that the proposed incinerator would be deadly for local communities.

June 26, 2007 -- Hundreds of thousands of harp seal pups are killed every year in Northeast Canada. Yesterday, ELAW partners in Mexico filed a petition with the Montreal-based Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) calling for a formal investigat

June 13, 2007 -- Residents of a low-income neighborhood in Chile are finally seeing justice, following exposure to an illegal toxic waste dump.
In Ecuador, government authorities are calling for a halt to a short-sighted dam project. In Russia, an oil p