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Publications
Review of
project Environmental Impact Assessment
October 2003
OUT
NOW!! - See
IFC generic reply to EIA comments
The Baku Ceyhan
Campaign has, along with its partner groups, carried out a detailed
study of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the Turkish
section of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline. Astoundingly,
it found 173 violations of international standards, including
the World Bank's own lending policies. Its findings included:
- The BTC
project violates every relevant World Bank safeguard policy on
multiple counts. On consultation alone, the project breaks
6 key World Bank guidelines on 83 separate counts.
- Many of
the claims made in the EIA are misleading and unsupportable.
For example, BTC claims to have conducted comprehensive consultation
exercises, yet those exercises lasted little more than two months
in total and fewer than 2% of people were consulted face to face.
- Since World
Bank standards form part of the legal regime for the project as
mandated by the Host Government Agreement (HGA) and the Lump Sum
Turnkey Agreement, such breaches potentially constitute violations
of host country law.
- In order
to keep to the project's construction timetable, Emergency
Powers have been invoked to carry out the land acquisition process
more quickly, in violation of World Bank policy OD 4.30 (Involuntary
Resettlement). For poorer people, the likely outcome is that they
will be worse off than before the project. Some are already talking
of having to leave their lands.
- BTC has declined
to apply the World Bank's Operational Directive 4.20, Indigenous
Peoples, the only directive specifically aimed at safeguarding
the interests of minority groups. Closer investigation, however,
reveals that the Kurds in particular meet every one of the criteria
for applying OD 4.20, and that the rationale for not doing so
is fatally flawed. The decision not to apply the policy leaves
ethnic minority groups unnecessarily and unjustifiably vulnerable
to socio-political difficulties connected to the BTC project.
- The legal
framework for the project is in potential breach of Turkey's obligations
under international human rights and environmental law. The
HGAs also conflict with Turkey's accession agreements with the
European Commission, and with with the OECD's Guidelines on Multinational
Enterprises. Funding for the project may therefore breach the
World Bank's Memorandum of Understanding with the EC on finance
for accession countries.
Download the
EIA Review:
Executive
summary
Cover
page + contents
Chapter
1 - Introduction
Chapter 2 - Issues
arising from legal regime for BTC project
Chapter 3 - Consultation
Chapter 4 - Land
expropriation, compensation and resettlement
Chapter 5 - Cultural
Heritage
Chapter 6 - Environmental
assessment
Chapter 7 - Lack
of assessment of alternatives to the BTC project
Chapter 8 - Ethnic
minorities and disadvantaged groups
APPENDICES
SUPPLEMENTARY
APPENDIX
Evaluation
of project compliance with Equator Principles
See also correspondence:
Letter
to Hilary Benn (DfID) re project breaches of World Bank standards,
October 2003
Letter
to IFC re project breaches of World Bank standards, October
2003
Letter
to EBRD re project breaches of World Bank standards, October
2003
Letter
to ECGD re project breaches of World Bank standards, October
2003
IFC
generic reply to EIA comments, October 2003
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