Pitfalls and Pipelines - Philippine Indigenous Peoples Links

264 Pitfalls and Pipelines: Indigenous Peoples and Extractive Industries
Conclusion
Clearly, legal strategies are important. It is likely, however,
that any legal strategy will be part of a larger plan to
further the development aims of the community. Legal action
has many benefits, not least is it may be one of the few ways
to force a state to take action to support a community. But
the legal struggles are often hard and long, and even then
enforcement or final redress may not come at the end of a
ruling. Yet, when seen as another tool for communities to use,
with an imaginative mind all options are worth considering.
Just bear in mind that justice can be a rather perverse
beast. As an example in December 2007, the Indonesian environmental
group, Walhi, failed in its second national court
case attempting to get justice for the pollution caused by US
mining company Newmont’s Buyat Bay mine. Newmont was
disposing of its tailings straight into the sea. By coincidence, at
the same time American shareholders had succeeded in getting
a federal judge to approve a $15 million settlement over
whether the company had given full disclosure to shareholders
over the same project. At that point in time, the local community
who had potentially lost their health and livelihoods
failed in their case, but the shareholders who stood to suffer
only monetary loss had won. There are times when justice is
indeed blind.
The Western Shoshone: An Indigenous Peoples’
Resistance in the United States
By Julie Cavanaugh-Bill, Western Shoshone Defense Project 37
The following presentation focuses on the legal strategy undertaken by
the Western Shoshone in the USA, particularly focusing on two Western
Shoshone sisters, Carrie and Mary Dann. The basis of the struggle is
that US Federal Government currently claims approximately 90 percent
of Newe Sogobia (Shoshone land). This claim is premised on the unjust
Doctrine on Discovery. This same doctrine continues to underpin US
Federal Indian Law and is based on a racial discriminatory premise, which