SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
For Immediate Release
August, 20 2019, 12:00am EDT
Contact:
Joe Karp-Sawey, media manager,Tel: +44 (0)7711 875 345,Email:,joe.karpsawey@globaljustice.org.uk
Approval of Armenian Gold Mine Shows Corporate Courts 'Crush Democracy'
Armenian Prime Minister approves controversial Amulsar gold mine in live online addressUK-registered mining company Lydian International had threatened $2 billion ‘corporate courts’ claimProtest outside Armenian embassy in London tomorrow
WASHINGTON
Global Justice Now and War on Want have today condemned the announcement by the Prime Minister of Armenia that he is authorising the controversial Amulsar gold mine in southern Armenia.
In a live online address last night, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who came to power last year after a wave of pro-democracy protests dubbed the 'Velvet Revolution', announced that the open-cast mine would go ahead.
The mine, approved before the revolution, has been the subject of a long-standing campaign in Armenia. There are concerns about the ecological and social impacts of the mine, and in particular fears around the contamination of Armenia's water supply. As a result, the Amulsar site has been subject to a permanent blockade by residents and environmentalists since mid-2018, with construction brought to a halt and no gold extracted.
Last year Pashinyan commissioned a review of previous processes around the mine's approval. Then at the start of this year, Lydian International, the UK and Jersey-registered company behind the mine, threatened to lodge a massive $2 billion claim against the Armenian government in an international 'corporate court'. Although the final review found many problems, Pashinyen now wants to let the mine continue, saying that if mitigating steps are taken, that will be sufficient.
Global Justice Now and War on Want argue that the Armenian case is just the latest evidence that corporate courts are an unacceptable attack on democratic sovereignty. They are demanding that the UK government commits to excluding ISDS from post-Brexit trade deals and removing it from existing UK investment deals.
James Angel, campaigner at Global Justice Now, said:
"A few months after Lydian announced the threat of a $2 billion claim, the Armenian government has folded. This is just the latest example of how corporate courts crush democracy. We send our solidarity to the campaigners in Armenia, we call on Lydian to drop their plans for toxic mining and we call on the UK government to urgently withdraw from trade deals that include corporate courts.
Liz McKean, campaigner at War on Want, said:
We are seeing corporate courts in action, holding the Armenian government to ransom until it backs down. Open cast gold mining poses serious environmental and social threats, but corporate courts hand corporations a powerful tool to override that. The Armenian government should be able to listen to its people, who do not want this mine, and the UK should get rid of corporate courts.
The campaign groups will be protesting against the decision, and in solidarity with campaigners in Armenia, outside the Armenian Embassy in London, 25A Cheniston Gardens, Kensington, London W8 6TG, at 5.30pm on Wednesday evening.
Background
Independent geological experts have previously warned that the Amulsar mine will lead to acid water contaminating the nearby Lake Sevan, the largest freshwater lake in the whole Caucasus region. The mine also threatens jobs in the nearby spa town of Jermuk, whose economy is based on health tourism and agriculture. Initial construction work on the mine has already caused incidents of contamination of resident's water supplies and nearby rivers.
Corporate courts (technically known as investor state dispute settlement or ISDS) are a parallel legal system that allows foreign investors to sue governments for policies they think might curb their profits. In the past, corporate courts have been used to sue governments for a range of measures, from introducing plain cigarette packaging to banning fracking. They are written into many trade and investment deals.
Last month the campaign groups released a documentary, More Precious Than Gold: community resistance v corporate courts, featuring interviews with some of those blockading the mine, as well as Armenian environmentalists from the Save Amulsar campaign. It can be viewed at https://youtu.be/112qdK9Dees
Notes
1. PM Pashinyan Approves Amulsar Mining, Armenian Weekly, https://armenianweekly.com/2019/08/19/pm-pashinyan-approves-amulsar-mining/
2. Global Justice Now and War on Want are part of the Stop ISDS campaign in the UK: https://www.stopisds.org.uk
Global Justice Now is a democratic social justice organisation working as part of a global movement to challenge the powerful and create a more just and equal world. We mobilise people in the UK for change, and act in solidarity with those fighting injustice, particularly in the global south.
020 7820 4900LATEST NEWS
'Hands Off Our Pensions': Belgian Workers Take to the Streets in General Strike Against Austerity Measures
It's the latest of several national strikes over the past year and a half against policies that one union leader said will heighten "inequality" and "poverty."
May 13, 2026
Much of Belgium ground to a halt on Tuesday as tens of thousands of workers flooded the streets of Brussels as part of a general strike against government austerity measures.
Schools closed, public transit operated with reduced service, and flights out of major airports were grounded as workers walked off the job. Instead, they marched through the capital clad in red and green, the colors of Belgium's major labor unions, with some carrying signs that read, "Hands off our pensions" and "We will not pay the price of their wars."
According to Morning Star, as many as 100,000 people took part in the strike, which was called by the nation's three biggest trade unions in protest of measures by Prime Minister Bart De Wever's government that the unions say slash pensions, reduce wages, and attack collective bargaining.
The marchers called on the government to roll back plans to raise Belgium's retirement age to 67 and have called for an end to what the unions have dubbed a “pension penalty” that would cut benefits for those who retire early.
Amid rising costs caused by the US-Israeli war against Iran, the unions are also outraged by a proposed temporary cap on wage indexation, which requires wages to rise in tandem with inflation.
It's part of a broader trend of the government loosening labor rules for employers, which unions say has led to longer, more irregular hours and diminished employees' work-life balance.
"People will have less money left over and will still have to work more flexibly and longer," said Ann Vermorgen, the chair of the Confederation of Christian Trade Unions. "Even the Planning Bureau says that the reform will promote inequality and that poverty will emerge.”
Tuesday's general strike was just the latest over the past year and a half, as the unions have refused to let up on their push to reverse De Wever's agenda.
Gert Truyens, the chair of the General Confederation of Liberal Trade Unions of Belgium (ACLVB), said that with the pension penalty and the other labor proposals, the government was displaying “total disregard” for social dialogue by “unilaterally imposing things without discussing them with the trade unions and employers.”
Keep ReadingShow Less
Mass Protests Erupt in Argentina Over Milei’s Assault on Public Universities
“This government is determined to defund public education,” said one protester.
May 13, 2026
Tens of thousands of Argentines took to the streets on Tuesday to protest against cuts to public universities championed by right-wing President Javier Milei.
As reported by The Associated Press, demonstrators in Buenos Aires marched on the Plaza de Mayo toward the Casa Rosada to demand the government implement funding for public universities that was passed by Congress last year but that Milei's administration is challenging in court.
The AP reported that university professors' salaries have declined by roughly one-third since Milei came to power in 2023 due to the rising cost of living in the country, and education unions have rejected the government's proposals for marginal funding increases as woefully insufficient.
A report from DW noted that "public university budgets been slashed by 40% since 2023 when Milei took power."
Sol Muñíz, a law student at the University of Buenos Aires, told the AP that Milei's cuts to the education system aren't about saving the government money, but are part of a broader ideological project.
“It’s very clear this government is determined to defund public education,” said Muñíz. “University is a source of pride for us. It is the best thing we have.”
Student Renata Lopez said in an interview with Agence France-Presse that Milei's attacks on education reminded her of the society depicted in Ray Bradbury's classic book Fahrenheit 451, in which government agents systematically burned their citizens' books.
"Defunding education isn't something alien, it isn't dystopian," said Lopez. "It's something that's happening."
A demonstrator identified only as Marcelo, a student at the University of Quilmes, told El País that he was demonstrating to "defend our public university, which isn’t a privilege but a right of all Argentinians."
According to a report from Bloomberg earlier this month, Milei's popularity in Argentina has been sinking in recent months, as his government has been beset by corruption scandals and economic setbacks that have harmed the image he has tried to cultivate as an anti-establishment reformer.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Trump Cries 'Virtual Treason' as US News Outlets Detail Iran War Intel Assessments
New reporting on classified US intelligence findings undercuts the Trump administration's repeated claims that it has obliterated Iran militarily.
May 13, 2026
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday accused news outlets of committing "virtual treason" by reporting on classified American intelligence agency assessments showing that Iran has retained significant missile capabilities, contradicting triumphant White House claims that the Middle East country's forces have been utterly decimated.
The New York Times reported Tuesday that the Trump administration's "public portrayal of a shattered Iranian military is sharply at odds with what US intelligence agencies are telling policymakers behind closed doors, according to classified assessments from early this month that show Iran has regained access to most of its missile sites, launchers, and underground facilities."
"Most alarming to some senior officials is evidence that Iran has restored operational access to 30 of the 33 missile sites it maintains along the Strait of Hormuz, which could threaten American warships and oil tankers transiting the narrow waterway," the newspaper added.
The Times reporting came on the heels of a Washington Post story last week detailing "a confidential CIA analysis delivered to administration policymakers" concluding that Iran "can survive the US naval blockade for at least three to four months before facing more severe economic hardship."
The Post also reported that the US intelligence community "found that Tehran retains significant ballistic missile capabilities despite weeks of intense US and Israeli bombardment."
"Iran retains about 75% of its prewar inventories of mobile launchers and about 70% of its prewar stockpiles of missiles," according to the Post, which cited an unnamed US official. "The official said there is evidence that the regime has been able to recover and reopen almost all of its underground storage facilities, repair some damaged missiles, and even assemble some new missiles that were nearly complete when the war began."
In a Truth Social post late Tuesday afternoon, Trump—who has claimed that Iran has "nothing left in a military sense"—fumed that "when the Fake News says that the Iranian enemy is doing well, Militarily, against us, it’s virtual TREASON in that it is such a false, and even preposterous, statement."
"They are aiding and abetting the enemy!" the president continued, declaring that Iran has "no Navy, their Air Force is gone, all Technology is gone, their 'leaders' are no longer with us, and the Country is an Economic Disaster."
On top of intelligence assessments showing that Iran has maintained substantial military capabilities in the face of the US-Israeli onslaught, reports indicate that Iran has inflicted more damage on American military bases and other equipment than the Trump administration has publicly disclosed.
"American military bases and other equipment in the Persian Gulf region suffered extensive damage from Iranian strikes that is far worse than publicly acknowledged and is expected to cost billions of dollars to repair," NBC News reported late last month, citing three unnamed US officials, two congressional aides, and another person familiar with the damage.
A recent Washington Post analysis of satellite imagery found that "Iranian airstrikes have damaged or destroyed at least 228 structures or pieces of equipment at US military sites across the Middle East since the war began, hitting hangars, barracks, fuel depots, aircraft, and key radar, communications, and air defense equipment," an amount of destruction "far larger than what has been publicly acknowledged by the US government."
Phil Gordon, a foreign policy scholar at the Brookings Institution, wrote Wednesday that, "10 weeks in, the strategic failure is undeniable" for the Trump administration in Iran.
"The risk now is that having missed the opportunity to declare victory after the first few weeks, Trump can't accept defeat and humiliation so will keep looking for the next quick fix, thereby likely only making things worse," Gordon warned.
The Trump administration has lashed out publicly at news outlets for reporting on assessments that run counter to the Pentagon's rosy narrative of the illegal war's trajectory. Pete Hegseth, the Pentagon secretary, has condemned American media outlets as "unpatriotic" and warned reporters to "think twice" before publishing classified information.
Earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal revealed that the US Justice Department subpoenaed the newspaper's journalists in March for records related to coverage of the Iran war.
“This is the latest attack in the Trump administration’s war on press freedom," Katie Fallow, deputy litigation director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, said in response to news of the subpoenas. "Time and again, the administration has shown itself willing to disregard the First Amendment and long-standing limits on the use of government power to go after news outlets that publish embarrassing or critical information about the government."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular