Pascua Lama

Pascua-Lama is an open pit mining project of gold, silver, copper and other minerals. Pascua Lama is located in the Andes mountains, in the southern reaches of Atacama Desert, straddling the border between Chile and Argentina at an altitude of over 4,500 metres. Toronto-based Barrick Gold, the world's largest gold mining company, is developing the project. Due to its proximity to glaciers, Pascua-Lama has caused controversy and public protest in Chile, including demonstrations and petitions presented to the Chilean government. Chile has not approved the project.

Pascua-Lama contains estimated deposits of 17 million ounces of gold and 635 million ounces of silver, with 75 percent of the deposits in Chile and 25 percent in Argentina.

Legal background

There is a long-running Court action (Action No. C-1912-2001) in Chile found on the Court's website, initiated in 2001 by a professional mining agent, one Mr. Villar, regarding mining rights for a 3,100-hectare plot of land in Chile next to Barrick's Pascua Lama mine. The lone road to Barrick's Pascua Lama mine snakes through Mr. Villar's claim, however even if Barrick doesn't win the appeal against Mr. Villar, Barrick can still continue to use this road to as Mr. Villar would only control mining rights to the disputed territory, not surface rights. The Court case is now moving to a final conclusion at the Supreme Court level in Santiago's 14th District Court. [Chile is a "Napoleonic Code" jurisdiction, similar to France and Quebec, and its system of law varies from that in England, Canada and the United States ("Common law" jurisdictions). Accordingly, its Court procedure is considerably different than that of Common law jurisdictions.]