Human Rights

A vote for Vale is a vote against the Belo Monte Dam

Vale – the Brazilian mining compa

Congress of the International Hydropower Association
Foz do Iguaçú, Brasil



Make no mistake: the Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Protocol (HSAP) is a purely voluntary assessment tool.  It has little basis in multilateral international agreements, and exerts no binding force.  This proposed Protocol risks weakening existing social and environmental standards and concentrating control over assessments in the hands of the hydropower industry, ignoring the democratic processes of national legislation and international accords. 



The HSAP seeks only to measure, not enforce, the sustainability of hydropower projects.  It contains no minimal sustainability requirements and no bottom line for defining what an acceptable hydropower project is.   It does not require respect for human rights, for international conventions, or even for national laws. 



Sheyla Juruna tells Valter Cardeal of Eletrobras that indigenous people did not give consent to Belo Monte Dam (International Rivers)

During the same day that the Peruvian government canceled Eletrobras' Inambari dam in the Peruvian Amazon as a result of non-compliance with the international Labor Organization's Convention 169 on the rights of indigenous peoples to Free, Prior, and Informed Consent, tribes from Brazil's Xingu River basin lambasted the Brazilian government at an International Congress for having failed to achieve consent from indigenous peoples who would be affected by the Belo Monte Dam.