B

Baroness Boycott (CB)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 20 January 2025

Debate

Colombia: Bilateral Investment Treaty

Contribution

My Lords, I declare my interest as director of the Hay Festival Cartagena in Colombia. We will have our 20th anniversary next week, when we will be joined by many politicians, environmentalists and tribal leaders. Perhaps I might extend the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, about the $13 billion. Australia does not have an ISDS agreement with Colombia. The mega mining group BHP has found a workaround via its UK-registered spin-off company, South32, to sue Colombia for $94 million over alleged unpaid royalties from a mine that the Constitutional Court of Colombia has ruled causes serious long-term health and environmental issues. As the penholder, can we not intervene in this? Colombia has 10% of the world’s unique birds and, just in the last 12 months, it has found 12 new species of plants and an animal, an amphibian, that we did not even know existed.

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