Focus on Arts and Ecology

Colombia could abandon investor-state dispute settlement, a system that its critics say gives foreign investors preferential treatment. 

By Sam Meadows, April 24, 2026

When plans were announced for an open-pit copper mine in the cloud forests of Ecuador in 2004, they were vigorously opposed by residents. The project risked damaging forests, water sources and the area’s rich biodiversity, they said.

In a rare victory for community action, the Ecuadorean government pulled support for the scheme. But that was not where the story ended. The miners behind the project, Copper Mesa, decided to take the Ecuadorean government to an investor arbitration tribunal. The Canadian company was ultimately awarded a payout of USD 24 million.

Investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) is a process baked into thousands of investment treaties and contracts. It is supposed to give foreign investors certainty by giving them the right to sue governments over damage to their profits – and the reassurance that their assets will not be seized by a future government in the host country.

ISDS is heavily criticised by environmentalists and academics. They claim it has a “chilling effect” on environmental regulations, and gives foreign investors preferential treatment. The high cost of claims also strains public budgets.

In March, 220 economists and legal experts wrote to Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, ahead of his country hosting the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels, which commences today in Santa Marta. This new international conference is dedicated to reducing fossil fuel reliance. The letter urges Petro to withdraw Colombia from ISDS, arguing that the system impinges on states’ rights to “regulate freely in the public interest, including in the context of climate action”.

Colombia has 129 oil and gas projects covered by ISDS which, the letter explains, exposes it to claims in the “billions of dollars”. In a post on X in late March, Petro suggested he would “accept the invitation”.

Exactly what Petro means by that is likely to be hotly debated over the next six days at Transition Away.

What is ISDS?

Agreements containing ISDS proliferated throughout the 1990s. Dialogue Earth consulted Luciana Ghiotto of the Transnational Institute (TNI), a research and advocacy centre based in the Netherlands. She says wealthier nations promoted these agreements as a way of attracting badly needed investment.

ISDS is thought to be written into more than 3,000 bilateral investment and multilateral trade treaties, according to estimates, as well as private contracts. In rare cases, it is written into domestic law in the receiving countries.

Advocates argue ISDS gives foreign investors certainty and makes them more likely to invest.

However, studies have cast doubt on these claims. A 2020 article in the Journal of Economic Surveys claimed the impact of such agreements was “so small as to be considered zero”. It ceded, however, that contemporary research methods may have been insufficiently precise.

Ladan Mehranvar, a legal researcher at Columbia University in the US, says ISDS puts foreign companies in a privileged position: “These protections go well beyond what’s afforded to similar domestic investors.”

Claims can be brought in a number of international tribunals. The most commonly used is the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), which sits within the World Bank.

Rachel Thrasher, a global trade researcher at Boston University in the US, says this process is a “unique international instrument”. She explains: “This is a situation where countries have granted consent to foreign investors to sue them [outside of their own courts].”

Most cases have generally related to nationalisations. But investors are proving increasingly willing to file claims related to environmental protections that affect their investments.

In the past 30 years, at least 419 known cases have been filed against Latin American and Caribbean countries, according to a TNI report published in February. Awards to investors from these tribunals totalled USD 36.6 billion.

Roughly a quarter of these cases relate to the environment. But this proportion has more than doubled since 2014.

How ISDS throttles environmental protections

Latin American countries have faced a “growing” number of claims from mining, oil and gas investors challenging “environmental conservation policies [and] regulations protecting communities’ rights”, according to the TNI report.

In 2023, the UN environmental human rights rapporteur David Boyd found that “secretive” ISDS mechanisms were a “major obstacle” in addressing environmental crises. His report confirmed that foreign investors use the process to “seek exorbitant compensation from states that strengthen environmental protection”. The fossil fuel and mining industries had been awarded more than USD 100 billion, making it a system for “paying polluters”.

Latin American countries remain exposed. A November 2025 policy brief from Boston University found 218 oil and gas projects in Amazonian countries covered by ISDS provisions. “Policies that limit oil and gas extraction could result in ISDS claims from fossil fuel companies whose profits depend on related deforestation,” the brief reads.

“There is a chilling effect,” says Ghiotto. “The investor is free to do whatever he wants and whenever the state wants to make a small regulation to prevent, for example, mining in a wetland, these corporations start threatening states with a claim.”

Crucially, these claims do not have to be filed to prevent climate action. In 2017, the social scientist Kyla Tienhaara warned that oil and gas companies could use the system to delay public policy on climate change, a tactic previously used by the tobacco industry: “Fossil fuel corporations do not have to win any ISDS cases for this strategy to be effective; they only have to be willing to launch them.”

Colombia has fallen victim to this regulatory chill in public health policy. In 2016, the government was challenged by a drug company when it attempted to remove its production monopoly on blood cancer medicine to lower the price. The policy was scrapped.

The country also faced a tribunal over a decision by its constitutional court to ban mining in some of its mountainous ecosystems, citing environmental risks. This blocked a planned gold mining project by Canadian company Eco Oro, which sued for USD 696 million in compensation. In an unusual judgement, the tribunal ruled that the court’s decision was legitimate, but also that the company had been treated unfairly. It ultimately awarded symbolic compensation of USD 0 (zero), but Colombia was still left with an estimated USD 6 million in tribunal costs.

Mehranvar points out that tribunal decisions tend to be skewed in favour of the Global North, with most cases being filed against Global South countries: “It’s very one-sided.” Thrasher adds that, even when Global North countries do face claims, they may be better able to defend themselves thanks to their greater resources.

Could Colombia leave?

During his administration, Petro has halted new oil and gas licences and, via its hosting of the Transitioning Away conference, his government is placing itself at the forefront of fossil fuel phaseout. However, this could expose it – and other similar countries – to ISDS claims. The Netherlands, for example, is facing a claim from ExxonMobil for its decision to close the Groningen gas field.

The 220 economists and legal experts who wrote to Petro think leaving the ISDS system is the solution. But what could this look like?

The country could attempt to renegotiate its multi- and bilateral trade treaties to remove ISDS. However, it could also choose to leave them unilaterally. Another solution could be to withdraw from the ICSID.

Ecuador withdrew from ICSID in 2010 and by 2017 had terminated its bilateral investment treaties. In addition, its constitution was amended to prevent the signing of future treaties containing ISDS clauses. Bolivia also withdrew after facing a claim following the renationalisation of Cochabamba’s water supply in 2000. Privatisation had quickly increased prices by 50%, leading to an uprising in the city dubbed the “war of water”.

Ghiotto says the idea that withdrawing from ISDS will reduce investment is a “myth”. Brazil has entirely avoided treaties containing ISDS clauses and is regularly the first or second destination for foreign investment in Latin America. Foreign companies will invest where the resources are, she explains: “You cannot extract lithium or gold in the outskirts of Paris or in London.”  

Since terminating its agreements in 2017, Ecuador has still been able to attract significant foreign investment – for example, a new trade agreement with Canada that excludes traditional ISDS.

Dialogue Earth spoke to Federico Gay, an analyst at the energy transition supply chains specialist Benchmark Minerals. Gay says multiple factors play into a company’s decision to invest overseas, or a government’s decision to accept investment. Companies would be far more concerned about the prospect of political instability than whether they would have adequate investor protection, he explains.

Even once a country has decided to leave, it remains bound by termination clauses written into agreements that can effectively keep the agreement in force for decades. “This is a way of putting the states in handcuffs,” Ghiotto says. “It’s very difficult [to leave], but you have to try, otherwise there is no way that you will be able to regulate. The system is made for you not to regulate.”

As the Santa Marta conference begins, Colombia’s foreign investors will be cautiously waiting to see if Petro follows through on his word.

Colombia has positioned itself as a leader of the global push to extinguish fossil fuels, but its own transition must defy internal threats. 

By Isabella Kaminski, May 6, 2026

When Gustavo Petro said he would replace Colombia’s fossil fuel exports with avocados in 2018, his pledge was largely met with derision – and memes. Eight years on, Petro is president, and Colombia just hosted the inaugural international conference on phasing out fossil fuels. It took place in Santa Marta, a coastal city on the Caribbean sea with an important coal export industry. Choosing this location was a bold statement to the world: Colombia is serious about the energy transition.

The conference, which happened outside of the UNFCCC process, was not set up to extract binding commitments from the 57 nations present. Instead, it ended with governments being urged to draw up national phaseout roadmaps. The announcement of a second instalment next year in Tuvalu, with co-hosting support provided by Ireland, was met with applause.

For Colombia, its hosting of the conference as a “coalition of the willing” is a continuation of a policy goal; as part of his presidential campaign in 2022, Petro pledged to halt the issuing of new oil and gas exploration licences.

In one way, Colombia has an advantage over most countries represented at Santa Marta, because it only generates a third of its electricity from fossil fuels. The biggest share comes from hydropower, supported by smaller amounts from biofuels, solar and wind. However, renewables only deliver a quarter of Colombia’s overall energy demand. And domestic demand for gas is rising; up to a quarter could come from imports this year.

With its high-profile commitments and status as the first host of the Transition Away conference, Colombia has placed itself at the forefront of the global phaseout agenda. As such, its own progress in weaning itself off coal, oil and gas will be watched closely, say experts. Even as a looming presidential election threatens to throw a spanner in the works.

Colombian ambition

While there is resistance to new renewable energy projects – particularly wind – in some Colombian communities, experts tell Dialogue Earth they are generally viewed positively. Colombia’s minister for the environment and sustainable development, Irene Vélez Torres, is also pitching phaseout as a measure to support national energy independence and sovereignty. Such arguments have become increasingly prominent since the Gulf conflict began.

In the lead-up to Santa Marta, the Colombian government announced a range of new environmental measures to signal its momentum. The Ministry of Environment published a draft roadmap for a national fossil fuel phaseout. It sets out ways in which the country could cut fossil fuel demand by 90% through rapid deployment of solar and wind, widespread electrification, as well as investments in energy efficiency and demand-side management.

In November, the government announced it would no longer approve new hydrocarbon or mining projects in the country’s Amazon region, which accounts for 42% of national territory. The concept of “fossil free zones” – areas of significance for their ecology, biodiversity or culture that are placed under protection from exploration – was discussed in Santa Marta.

Andrés Gómez, the Latin American coordinator of the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative, says Colombia’s commitment was an important “demonstration of political will”.

Realising this commitment, however, may prove more difficult, as previous attempts to protect the Amazon have shown. Weak enforcement, for example, hampers such efforts.

Indigenous groups are strongly in favour of the move. Oswaldo Muca, general coordinator of the Organization of Indigenous Peoples of the Colombian Amazon (Opiac), says fossil fuels threaten these communities’ way of life and the ecosystems they have protected for thousands of years. But he warns the transition must include Indigenous peoples as full partners in decision-making: “For the transition to be truly just, it must not reproduce the same models of extractivism, and the social and environmental impacts of the fossil fuel industry.”

Fossil fuel dependence

However, Colombia’s key problem is disentangling its existing economic dependence on fossil fuel exports. In particular, coal and oil contribute 10% of its GDP. As an indication of the economic risks the country is being exposed to, Petro’s decision to halt oil and gas exploration led to Colombia’s credit rating being downgraded in 2024.

Colombia is sixth in the world for coal exports, and exports the most of any nation in Central and South America. Nearly all of it comes from the northern regions of La Guajira and Cesar. Colombia is also a significant oil exporter.

The country is moving away from coal but that is largely in response to international markets, rather than an intentional exit plan. Traditional destinations for its coal exports in Europe and the US are drying up, and its attempt to pivot towards Asia is becoming complicated by high transport costs and competition.

“It’s very chaotic,” says Paola Yanguas, a transitions researcher at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences’ (ZHAW) Institute for Sustainable Development. “It’s creating a lot of social disruption in fossil fuel-dependent regions.”

Such disruption was evident when the Anglo-Swiss mining giant Glencore, operating through its Colombian subsidiary Prodeco, abruptly closed two mines during the Covid-19 pandemic. The shuttering of La Jagua and Calenturitas in Cesar led to the loss of 5,000 related jobs in the nearby town of La Jagua de Ibirico.

In February 2025, Colombia’s constitutional court ruled mine closure plans must involve the local community and secure their agreement before being finalised.

This is an indication of the complexities of unravelling the fossil fuel relationship. But there have been attempts to soften the blow. The University of Magdalena in Santa Marta ran a training programme to help selected former coal workers transition to clean energy consultancy work. “But when you look at the low-level miners, it’s really hard for them,” explains Yanguas. “There’s not much they can do.”

It is not just formal coal mining jobs that are affected. Yanguas points out that a whole informal economy is built around a coal mine, from food services to sex work, and those people have no protection at all. “Imagine in Germany, taking out the whole car industry?” posits Yanguas. “It has a domino effect, with many waves of impacts that are related.”

Diversification

In January, the regional environmental authority of La Guajira rejected a permit application from a mining company. “This means indeed we are seeing the closure of the expansion frontier of coal in Colombia,” says Yanguas. “With most-large scale mining titles ending in 2034, the question of economic diversification, especially in Cesar and Guajira, is more urgent than ever.”

There is recognition that the country needs to diversify. Speaking at the launch of the Santa Marta conference, Torres said the country has strengthened other sectors including food production and processing. “We have been able to show how this decision [to stop exploration] is feasible,” she said. The stress of the fiscal impact is still huge, she admitted, and the process was not easy, “but we have been consistent with science and with peoples”. 

Torres said Colombia had also embraced tourism, branding itself as the “Country of Beauty” and leaning hard on its famed biodiversity. The sector generated a record USD 11.17 billion in 2025, compared to USD 17.4 billion from coal, oil and gas exports. But it is unlikely to completely offset the economic impacts of coal’s decline.

Colombia’s draft roadmap suggests investments in green hydrogen, biofuels and critical mineral extraction as “key business opportunities … where Colombia holds significant competitive advantage”.

The country certainly has potential to shift extraction from fossil fuels to minerals for critical clean technologies. It is exploring the potential for copper, nickel, graphite and rare earth elements.

But experts say mining expansion could perpetuate the same socio-economic inequalities as fossil fuels. Human rights abuses have been alleged in relation to mines in Colombia, according to the Business and Human Rights Centre, an NGO headquartered in England.

Yanguas says people and communities need to be properly included in the process to avoid this outcome.

‘We are here to help’

These sentiments were echoed over five days in Santa Marta. Indigenous leaders, like Muca, warned delegates that the energy transition cannot be used as an excuse to “plunder” Indigenous lands.

The conference also gave communities a chance to have their own say, with a space in which to speak before state delegations during its high-level portion, a broad “People’s Summit” and a specific summit for Indigenous peoples. There was also a spirited march through the city that culminated with a rally in the city’s Plaza de Bolivar.

While Colombia has now established itself as a leader of the energy transition, its domestic phaseout could soon be under pressure. In just a few weeks’ time, Petro’s four-year presidential term will end. His approach to shifting the economy has been criticised by some of his opponents, with at least one candidate pledging to “reactivate” fossil fuel extraction and promote fracking.

Speaking at an event in Santa Marta, Colombia’s former president Juan Manuel Santos urged political candidates to “think long-term”, adding: “the responsible politicians are the ones that sometimes take unpopular decisions, but correct decisions.”

In Santa Marta, the spectre of elections that threaten to derail progress could not dampen the atmosphere. In attendance was a young Colombian anti-fracking activist named Yuvelis Morales Blanco, whose voice has been amplified since winning a Goldman Environmental Prize in April. She said civil society is ready to show that a just and territorial transition is possible: “We are here to help.”

Isabella Kaminski

Protests by villagers in the northern Philippines have led the Senate to suspend a permit given to a gold miner owned by a UK company. 

By Chantal Eco, April 24, 2026

For the past seven months, Analiza Balliao, 39, has started the day by preparing her two children for school, then tending to the garden where she and her husband Alfredo grow chillies to sell in the provincial market. Once her morning chores are done, she walks to a makeshift camp to join a human barricade.

The obstacle is set up at the entrance of Bitnong village, in the mountain town of Dupax del Norte, Nueva Vizcaya, northern Philippines.

When Analiza arrives, more than a dozen residents from surrounding barangays (villages) are already there. The women wash dishes, sort out donated vegetables, set a fire on the stove. The men axe wood. Some people sip coffee. Others huddle around a laptop watching their barricade on the news. They are talking, laughing, trading jokes in the easy rhythm of people who have been spending their mornings together for months. Others keep an eye on the road, checking the IDs of every motorist they do not recognise.

The community set the barricade up as a response to a mining exploration permit they say was granted without their knowledge or consent. The permit went to Woggle Corporation, which is owned by Metals Exploration PLC, a UK-listed company. Woggle planned to expand its existing open-pit mining operation in Runruno, also in Nueva Vizcaya, by exploring more than 3,000 hectares of forest and agricultural land for gold, copper, lead and zinc in neighbouring Dupax del Norte.

A permit kept secret

The application for the permit was filed with the Philippine Mines and Geosciences Bureau in July 2022 and approved in August 2025. Residents of Dupax del Norte claim that in that time, community members in the five affected villages of Bitnong, Inaban, Munguia, Parai and Oyao didn’t even know an application was being processed.

Congressman Timothy Cayton, then Dupax del Norte mayor, said at a 23 February Senate hearing that they had made the application public by posting it on a bulletin board and in newspapers. Lawyer Ryan Roset, of the Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center, argued that this is not the same as a public consultation.

“There was no genuine consultation conducted with the different barangays or local government units,” Florentino Daynos, president of Dupax del Norte Environmental Defenders, told Dialogue Earth.

Dialogue Earth reached out to Woggle Corporation by phone and email, but did not get a response.

Analiza first noticed something was amiss when she returned from selling vegetables one morning to find red markers and wires laid across her garden, some of them going through her crops – without warning, without permission. The wires, she was later told, were used to detect mineral deposits beneath the soil.

“We just saw them there, men trespassing on our property along with their equipment,” she recalled, adding that some areas of her property were cleared for this.

Dialogue Earth contacted Metals Exploration by email regarding their permit application and the ingress of exploration equipment into Dupax del Norte. They did not respond.

On 17 September 2025, the community set up the first barricade in their village to block incoming equipment from the mining company. A more substantial barrier on the road entering the village followed the next month. Analiza and Alfredo did not hesitate to join. They continue to take turns guarding it, bringing their children along when school is out to solve the childcare issue.

The resistance has come at a cost. Their income from the garden was already precarious, rising and falling with market prices. Spending time at the barricade has made it even more so. “The important thing is you have something for each day, something for the children’s needs,” Analiza said.

For a time, the barrier was able to prevent Woggle from bringing their equipment into the area, but on 17 October 2025, they faced the first of several dispersals by the police.

In January 2026, the cost of resistance became even higher for Analiza, when she was arrested along with six others by police enforcing a local court order to dismantle the barricade and allow mining exploration equipment to enter.

The day after her arrest, her 10-year-old daughter was rushed to hospital by her father after fainting. Analiza pleaded with the police and was eventually allowed to visit, but officers did not leave her side. She sat with her child under guard, not knowing whether she would be allowed to stay.

“I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep, my blood pressure shot up because of what happened to my daughter, and I couldn’t go to her immediately,” Analiza told Dialogue Earth in Filipino.

After three days in detention, Analiza was released, heading straight back to the hospital where her daughter was being treated for what turned out to be meningitis. Mother and daughter stayed together in the hospital for two weeks.

A law built for extraction

The legal framework enabling Woggle’s entry is the Philippine Mining Act of 1995, which opened the country to large-scale foreign mining investment and remains the basis for permit approvals today.

Joice Leray, advocacy officer for the Center for Environmental Concerns, a Philippine non-profit, says the law prioritises extraction over community rights and environmental protection, giving agencies like the Mines and Geosciences Bureau broad discretion to approve permits with minimal public disclosure.

She says the mining act “was made to open up, to tear through our country, for foreign mining companies”. Leray added: “In 31 years of this law, we have seen that it does not serve the people”.

The threat to Dupax del Norte is not abstract. Tin Araneta, a geologist with Agham (Advocates of Science and Technology for the People), another non-profit, said open-pit mining in a forested area strips vegetation, destabilises the terrain and can contaminate groundwater and surface water almost immediately once mineralised rock is exposed. The effects can persist for years. Stripped farmland is rarely rehabilitated in time to prevent lasting damage, she added.

“The intensity of the extraction process is too fast compared to how the environment recovers,” Araneta told Dialogue Earth.

Dupax del Norte lies within the Magat watershed – a critical water system spanning four provinces in Northern Luzon that supplies one of the Philippines’ largest hydroelectric dams and supports irrigated agriculture downstream. Residents think that mining in their town will affect the watershed, as all their waterways lead to the Magat River.

The Mines and Geosciences Bureau declined to be interviewed for this story. At the Senate hearing in February, however, Ismael Manaligod, head of the regional environmental department covering Dupax del Norte, presented the agency’s findings for approving the exploration permit.

“The entire area covered by the exploration permit has a minimal impact on the Magat River. This is because it is only 0.8% of the total area of the Magat River forest reserve,” he said. He also said that given the area’s distance to the Magat dam, it has no adverse effects on the river, and that the area covered in the permit does not directly drain into it.

“Lastly, Woggle Corporation shall include mitigating measures in its environmental work programme,” he added.

At a separate Senate hearing on 3 March, Woggle’s president, Tommy Alfonso, described the conflict as “a big misunderstanding” and said the company remained open to dialogue. He said Woggle had followed proper procedure throughout, had “undergone a strict 40-month process from 2022 to 2025”, and complied with all government requirements. As evidence of responsible operations, he pointed to FCF Minerals’ track record in the region. FCF Minerals, a Philippines-based subsidiary of the UK-listed Metals Exploration, owns a 60% stake in Woggle Corporation.

“We have contributed more than PHP 5 billion (USD 83 million) to national and local government for the last five years alone, with PHP 1.5 billion of this amount going directly to the local government,” Alfonso said at the hearing.

Leray said the mining industry’s contribution to the Philippine economy remains marginal, making up just 0.68% of the GDP and 0.58% of total employment nationally in 2024, according to Mines and Geosciences Bureau data.

“Their contribution to GDP and employment doesn’t even come close to the agricultural benefits of the land itself,” she said.

For Analiza, the economic argument is a hollow narrative.

“We feel frustrated because they keep insisting on going ahead with mining,” she said.

A victory, not yet an end

The arrests in January did not end the resistance. Instead, they sparked massive public outcry from various groups – from environmentalists to the Catholic church, even a beauty queen. Due to the growing opposition against the project, the Mines and Geosciences Bureau suspended Woggle’s permit, as senators called for an inquiry into its issuance.

At the 3 March hearing, the Senate ordered the local government to facilitate Woggle’s pullout from Dupax del Norte.

The suspension of the Dupax project has had a knock-on effect on other mining operations. On 18 February, FCF Minerals announced that by the end of 2026, they will cease operations at their existing gold mining project in nearby Runruno. The project would need new ore coming in from Dupax to remain feasible, it explained.

Daynos said: “This success in Dupax del Norte is a success against mining all over the Philippines.” He called it “a victory for all of us”, but added that the community ultimately needs the permanent cancellation of Woggle’s permit.

Metals Exploration chief executive Darren Bowden said they were putting the Dupax del Norte project on hold “for a little while”, but did not announce a permanent stop to mining operations. “Dupax at this stage is not a mining-friendly environment, not somewhere where we can move quickly,” Bowden said in a 6 February video published on their website.

“If things turn around in the future, sure, I think there’s still something there, I think there’s still something that could be great,” he said.

Without concrete confirmation that Woggle will not return, Bitnong’s barricade will continue to stand, and Analiza will continue to guard it.

Chantal Eco