El Tambor (La Puya) and the Kappes arbitration against Guatemala
- Social license and prior consultation
- Social license and prior consultation
- Audited
El Tambor–Progreso VII Derivada (gold; San José del Golfo and San Pedro Ayampuc; the peaceful 'La Puya' resistance) was suspended by the Supreme Court (CSJ) in 2016 for lack of consultation, confirmed by the Constitutional Court (CC) in 2020. Kappes, Cassiday & Associates claimed US$499 million from Guatemala before ICSID (CIADI, case ARB/18/43); the award of 23 December 2025 rejected the claim in full and ordered the investors to reimburse US$379,940.76 in procedural costs to Guatemala (date confirmed in Jus Mundi). The lesson: the Foreign Investment Law (Decree 9-98) opens the door to arbitration, but the treaty did not rescue a project without consultation or social peace.
The research is written in English; quoted figures, source names and the titles of legal instruments stay in the language their source published them in.
Figures
- Kappes v. Guatemala claim
- US$499 M
- Award
- 23 Dec 2025: claim dismissed; costs US$379,940.76 in Guatemala's favor
Sources
Organizations named in the answer
Related records
- The death of State-licensed projects in Guatemala
- Guatemala's ratification of ILO Convention 169 and its obligations
- Absence of a prior consultation law and Initiative 5450
- Over 100 community consultations without binding force
- The Constitutional Court's four stages of prior consultation
- The missing consultation law as an investor risk
This layer is research: read from public sources by the archive's own team, every claim cited with the date it was consulted, and audited where it is marked so. It has not entered the verified store — no figure here was fetched back from its source or stamped with a retrieval time — so it wears no red provenance numeral and never mixes with the verified figures.