ICE Case Studies

See all the ICE Cases

Deploy the ICE Search and Sort Tool (SST)

Go To ICE Expert Site

Number 85, Yadana Gas Pipeline in Burma, by Zaw Oo
_____________________________________________________________

1. The Issue

2. Description

The Yadana gas field is located beneath 150 feet of water, 69 kilometers (43 miles) south of Rangoon, the capital of Burma in the Andaman Sea. The oil executives consider the field the region's promising energy resource, which contains more than 5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Burma's neighbor, Thailand agreed to buy most of the Yadana gas to fuel a major (2,800-megawatt) power station constructed and operated by the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT) in Ratchaburi province, southwest of Bangkok (see map). Burmese government did not bargain the domestic portion of the pipeline, instead opted to take 15% stake in gas export revenue.

The French oil & gas company theTotal, which recently merged with a Belgium entity and became known as TotalFinaElf S.A,. is the largest investor in the project with a 31.24% interest. Unocal, Thailand's PTT Exploration & Production Public Co., Ltd., and state-owned Myanma Oil & Gas Enterprisewith, took 28.26%, 25.5 %, and 15% interest respectively. The major part of the project construction is a 412 kilometers of pipelines -- mostly undersea with the final 63kilometers (39 miles) crossing the Tenasserim region of southern Burma, to Ban-I-Tong at the Thai-Burma border. The Thai portion of the pipeline, from the border to the Ratchaburi power plant, is the responsibility of the Petroleum Authority of Thailand (PTT), which is purchasing the Yadana gas.

The environmental activists are concerned with the potential impact of the pipeline construction in Taninserim region, which has the largest block of intact rainforests in Southeast Asia. According to the World Wildlife Fund, the region is listed as one of Conservation International's twenty-four "hotspots" of global biodiversity, notable for endangering tremendous biological diversity. On the other hand, the offshore portion of the pipeline in the Andaman Sea also puts the environment at risk. Gas exploration and production produces large quantities of toxic wastes and atmospheric emissions. No independent Environmental Impact Assessments of the project have been conducted or subjected to public scrutiny. 

From the beginning, the project started with mounting controversies.  The project consortium asked the government to provide security for the project site, while a dozen of local villages were relocated along the corridor of pipeline area.  With the presence of more government troops in the areas, the local population was also forced to work as porters for the army.   Villagers are also forced to construct local roads  in some parts of the pipeline corridor without compensation. The complete militarization in the project area resulted in abuses such as extra-judicial killings, torture, rape and extortion by the army units have dramatically increased as project progressed. Many villagers fled to Thailand and took refuge in camps along the border, whereas many more were internally displaced within Burma.   By 1994, major international human rights and environmental groups have started to investigate the abuses and damages caused by the project.  In 1996, two lawsuits were filed at the US federal court against UNOCAL for its role in human rights abuses. 

When the project was completed, the whole Southeast Asia was hard hit by the Asian financial crisis. The project's sole market in Thailand was the hardest hit, while the demand for energy in Thailand has dropped for the first time. In the wake of crisis, Government of Thailand (GOT) deferred its purchase of gas from the project.  The GOT’s refusal to buy gas from Burma led to a trade dispute, where GOT justified force majure for failing to fulfill earlier agreement.  Meanwhile, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the pro-democracy movement has strongly criticized the project and remarked that oil corporations should pull out their investments from Burma. In Afghanistan, members of the Feminist Majority are protesting UNOCAL because of its plan to build a pipeline through Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. Since the Taliban regime took control of Kabul Afghanistan, a series of repressive measures against girls and women have been instituted. UNOCAL is a majority stakeholder in a consortium that hopes to construct a gas and oil pipeline from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to Pakistan.

Bolivia Pipeline: On February 1, 2000, around 29,000 barrels of refined crude oil and mixed gasoline spilled into the Desaguadero River in the Southwestern region of Bolivia. The cause: a flash flood that broke the Sica Sica-Arica pipeline that goes from Bolivia to Chile, from where the oil is shipped to the United States. Transredes, the operator of the pipeline controlled by Royal Dutch/Shell Group and Enron Development Corp., was accused of negligence -by some local groups- for turning the pump off more than 20 hours after the accident occurred and for not taking adequate preventive measures, in the first place.

Colombia Oil Export: The Andes mountains in Colombia have become the newest oil hot spot with several international companies drilling in the region. The Marxist guerrillas repeatedly interrupt production through the use of terrorist tactics including bombings and kidnappings. Environmental groups challenge Colombian laws regarding environmental degradation due to the methods of oil exploration and extraction primarily caused by foreign corporations.

Ecuador Oil Exports: Ecuador produces more oil than it needs for domestic consumption and thus it is one of the country's leading exports. Beneath the surface in eastern Ecuador and within the Amazon rain forest, a relatively undisturbed and biologically rich area, are large amounts of oil. Critics warn that the habitat could suffer either through the direct spilling of product and soil contamination or through the opening of the area to the outside through the building of roads. It is believed that the building of an oil industry would have a severely adverse impact on the environment. Some argue against drilling for oil in Ecuador's Amazon area, particularly since the oil is intended for trade.

Iran to India Gas Pipeline: In 1995, Pakistan and Iran signed a preliminary agreement for construction of a natural gas pipeline linking the Iranian South Pars natural gas field in the Persian Gulf with Karachi, Pakistan's main industrial port located at the Arabian Sea. Iran later proposed an extension of the pipeline from Pakistan into India. These negotiations indicate a significant shift in inter and intra-regional politics between the states. The potential for economic and developmental gain from natural gas will force India, Iran, and Pakistan to reassess their roles and policies in regional conflicts, like Kashmir, Afghanistan, and national security issues.

kazakh.htm">Khazakstan Oil: The area around Azerbaijan, on the southwestern shores of the Caspian Sea, is not the only portion of the region to have oil reserves. One of the world's largest oil fields, the Tengiz in western Kazakhstan, was discovered in 1979. The Tengiz discovery dramatically altered oil exploration potential for the region as a whole. The intricate political climate in the region is the factor which will ultimately determine how oil can be delivered to world markets. Kazakhstan is in the best position to profit from the oil reserves.

ogoni.htm">Ogoni (Ogoni) and Oil: Shell Oil controls approximately 60 percent of the domestic oil market in Nigeria. Shell operates many of its oil facilities in the oil-rich Delta region of Nigeria. The Ogonis, an ethnic group that predominate in the Delta region, have protested that Shell's oil production has not only devastated the local environment, but has destroyed the economic viability of the region for local farmers and producers.

Venezuela Gas Dispute: The Venezuelan government accused the United States of discriminating against its products when the Congress passed a bill requiring that Petr˘leos de Venezuela, S.A. (PdVSA) oil exports meet U.S. pollution control standards. According to the U.S. law, Venezuelan oil must be reformulated to reduce car pollution, just like domestic oil. The Clean Air Act of 1990 mandates that oil refiners reduce the levels of the smog-causing olefins by 1995, but allows a three year grace period for domestic refining companies.

4. Drafting Author

Zaw Oo, December 2000

II.                Legal Clusters

Two separate cases were filed on behalf of two different groups of Burmese refugees in September, 1996 against Unocal Corporation alleging primarily that Unocal's Yadana Project was using forced labor to construct its gas pipeline in Burma. Unocal argued that there was no theory of law that would allow US firm to be held liable for any acts occurring outside the US. In two separate opinions, Judge Richard Paez held that the cases could go forward under the Alien Tort Claims Act, a federal statute specifically designed to allow foreign nationals to sue U.S. citizens for violations of international law.

Such lawsuits represents a growing trend of international norm dynamics, which use international social pressures on undemocratic regimes. It also presents a serious challenge to multinational firms, which can be liable to damaging lawsuits for their actions and involvements in wrong doings overseas. If the lawsuits are successful, they represent a way of denying valuable foreign-exchange income to authoritarian regimes while at the same time complying transnational corporations to adopt good practices to promote socially-responsible policies in the host countries and to be held responsibility for the human-rights conditions of the countries in which they invest. For example, the recent high-profile cases such as Nike's Sweatshops and the use of prison labors (some of whom are questionably imprisoned for political belief) in China by manufacturing firms can be liable under this kind of lawsuits.

5. Discourse and Status: Disagree and In Progress

In October 1996, farmers from the Tenasserim region of Burma submitted a class action lawsuit in federal court in Los Angeles against Unocal Corp., Total S.A. and two Burmese government agencies, the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) and Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE). The farmers cited numerous human rights violations, including forced labor, forced relocation, and torture during the period of construction of natural gas pipeline in their region. The court gave Burmese government agencies sovereign immunity pursuant to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA), however, held the remaining defendants under the Alien Tort Claims Act, and that prudential concerns embodied in the act of state doctrine did not preclude consideration of the plaintiffs' claims.

On March 25, 1997, the court issued its initial ruling on the motion to dismiss filed by the defendants. It first examined the status of SLORC and MOGE with the application of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act in specific reference to the commercial activity exception. The court explained that SLORC and MOGE had engaged in commercial activity in the Yadana project. Accordingly, SLORC and MOGE were entitled to sovereign immunity. Second, the court reviewed the application of the Alien Tort Statute. The court indicated that certain violations of international law require state action. It recognized, however, that nonstate actors could be found liable for these violations of international law if they acted under color of law.

Attorneys for the refugees say that US Department of State cables obtained under the US Freedom of Information Act contradict Unocal's denials. They cite a 1995 cable of an interview with Unocal executive Joel Robinson, which stated: "On the general issue of the close working relationship between Total/Unocal and the Myanmese military, Robinson had no apologies to make. He stated forthrightly that the companies have hired the Burmese to provide security and pay for this through the Myanma Oil & Gas Enterprise."

6. Forum and scope: US Law and Multilateral (2)

The goal of the lawsuit was to stop the Yadana pipeline-a joint venture of Unocal, TOTAL, and the Burmese state-run energy company. Plaintiffs sought compensation for those who had allegedly lost their homes or their livelihood. The initial ruling from the court implied that Unocal and its chief executives could be held liable if it were proved that the company and the Burmese government had "conspired or acted as joint participants to deprive plaintiffs of international human rights in order to further their financial interests in the Yadana gas pipeline project." Judge Paez ruled that the plaintiffs could conceivably prove their allegations that Unocal and SLORC had indeed either conspired or acted as joint participants to deprive plaintiffs of international human rights in order to further their financial interests in the pipeline project.

In an especially important part of his ruling, Judge Paez found that his California court had subject-matter jurisdiction over the plaintiffs' claims. The issue for the court was whether claims based on international humanrights law could be asserted against private individuals. The judge found that they could, in cases where there is "a substantial degree of cooperative action" between the private parties and a state actor engaged in acts of torture or other violations.

Moreover, citing well-established precedents concerning piracy and slave trading, Judge Paez ruled that the forced-labor practices of the SLORC connected with the Yadana project were "sufficient to constitute an allegation of participation in slave-trading" - one of a handful of private acts subject to individual responsibility under customary international law. By paying the SLORC for security for the pipeline, the defendants were "essentially treating SLORC as an overseer, accepting the benefit of and approving the use of forced labor." He found that it was not implausible to suppose that "Unocal and its officers knew or should have known about SLORC's practices of forced labor and relocation when they agreed to invest in the Yadana gas pipeline project, and that, despite this knowledge, they agreed that SLORC would provide labor for the joint venture and would be responsible for clearing the way and providing security."

The lawsuit also implicates US government to manage complex bilateral and multilateral issues involving human rights concerns on one hand and trade concerns on the other. The trend is already evident as a case was filed a year ago in federal court in San Francisco involving a Chevron pipeline project in Nigeria. The active involvement of US-based activists and NGOs, which are ready to use US legal mechanisms to advance their support for improving human rights standards in the developing countries as well as promoting socially-responsible corporate practices, can be a compliment to the US foreign policy. The appeal of the actvisits was encouraged by the court ruling, which seemed to have rejected Unocal's argument that granting jurisdiction over the suit would interfere with the U.S. government's present policy on Burma, which Unocal stated was to refrain "from taking precipitous steps, such as prohibiting all American investment, that might serve only to isolate the Burmese government and actually hinder efforts toward reform." However, the issues can be more complicatory when US legal measures can make foreign corporations, for instance Total in Yadana case, liable to human rights claims.

7. Decision breadth: US, France, Burma

Doe v. Unocal is perhaps the first case to recognize the possibility of corporate liability for human rights violations arising out of corporate activity abroad. The consequences of this decision should be far-reaching. To encourage investment, foreign governments must be willing to protect human rights within their own countries. Private companies subject to suit in the United States may be more cautious about entering into agreements with foreign governments that have a poor human rights record. These companies may also take greater care in monitoring their foreign operations. Overall, these developments should promote human rights abroad.(3)

8. Legal standing: Law

Federal district Judge Ronald S. W. Lew issued an opinion on September 1, 2000 holding that despite knowing about and benefiting from the use of slave labor, Unocal cannot be held liable.  Attorneys for the plaintiffs will appeal the ruling as soon as possible and are confident that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals will reverse Judge Lew’s decision and remand the case for trial.

U.S. District Judge Ronald Lew ruled that, although the evidence suggests Unocal knew that forced labor was being used by government forces protecting the pipeline project, the plaintiffs failed to prove that the oil company had conspired with the Myanmar government or "controlled" the military's actions.  Unocal said the ruling, handed down last week, validated the company's claim that its "behavior and conduct has always been above reproach." The plaintiffs were also ordered to pay Unocal's court costs.  "Obviously, we're very pleased with the court's ruling," said Barry Lane, a company spokesman. "The court has now ruled that there is no evidence showing any Unocal participation in human rights abuses in Myanmar."

The plaintiffs, who include 15 Myanmar villagers, said they will appeal to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco and predicted they will eventually prevail because of the judge's conclusion that Unocal probably knew about abuses being committed by its host government. But Robert Benson, a Loyola University law professor, predicted activists will continue their legal battles against U.S.-based multinationals accused of doing harm abroad. He pointed to a case filed a year ago in federal court in San Francisco involving a Chevron pipeline project in Nigeria. "Both of these Myanmar decisions were technically narrow so these do not sink the entire activists' movement," he said. "There are other cases."

III. Geographic Clusters

9. Geographic locations 

Burma is a Southeast Asian country of approximately 45 million people in 8 major ethnic nationalities: ethnic Burmans account for roughly 60% of the population, with the Shan, the Karen, the Kachin, and the Karenni being the next most numerous.  Burma’s diverse, multicultural society boasts 106 languages and dialects.  The peoples’ spiritual faiths also reflect the underlying diversity of history and culture, including Buddhism, Christianity, Islam and varieties of animism.  Burma is rich in natural resources, such as precious stones, tropical hardwoods, and onshore and offshore energy reserves.  The Yadana pipeline crosses Tenasserim Region in Burma and Kanchana Buri province in Thailand. 

 9. a) Geographic domain:

Asia

9. b) Geographic site:

Southeast Asia

9. c) Geographic Impact

Tenasserim Region in Burma and Kanchana Buri Province in Thailand.

 10. Sub-national factors: ethnicity and conflicts

Yes

Map of Burma

The Tenasserim Region in Burma is a hotbed of violent conflicts in Burma.  The region is home to a number of ethnic groups that are fighting for autonomy from the central government.   Major groups such as Karen National Union and New Mon State Party were active in the region, representing Karen and Mon ethnic populations.  In 1995, the Burmese military entered into cease-fire agreement with the Mons, while continuing its suppressions against Karens.  In January 1999, the Burmese military was reported to have sent troops and armored vehicles to suppress ethnic insurgents threatening to bomb the pipeline. A unit was assigned to protect a 60-km stretch of pipeline from the town of Kanbauk to the border city of Thong Pha Phum that had been threatened by Karen guerrillas. The unit consisted of an artillery battalion and five rapid-response battalions. Four Karen men arrested as spies a month before the deployment admitted to Myanmese intelligence that they were planning to bomb the pipeline.  Rape is being systematically used by Burma's military as part of a policy of ethnic cleansing, according to interviews with rights workers and exiled pro-democracy officials. Bolstering those contentions are several recent reports, including one by EarthRights International,(4) a legal rights group, accusing Burma's military of"the savage domination of women outside the scope of acceptable wartime conduct." The report also says that "the violent sexual abuse of ethnic Burmese women at the hands of the military occurs in epidemic proportions."

11. Type of habitat:

Tropical

IV.             Trade Clusters

12. Type of measure: Import ban

On April 22, 1997, the United States imposed sanctions against Burma. The widespread human rights violations in Burma, including forced labor situations, drew attention and mobilized grassroots campaigns in the US and European countries. The appropriateness of using sanctions against the Burmese military regime had been widely debated in the U.S. over several months.

The US action on Burma took an example of the mechanisms used by some foreign companies to help eliminate apartheid in South Africa. The U.S. sanctions received bi-partisan support in the Congress, as indicated in the Cohen-Feinstein Amendment (S.5019), a Senate bill eventually signed into law by the President as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 1997 (Public Law 104-208). The sanctions are conditional upon a finding by the President that". . . the Government of Burma has physically harmed, rearrested for political acts, or exiled Daw Aung San Suu Kyi or has committed large-scale repression of or violence against the democratic opposition." The President made this determination on April 22. As far as business is concerned, the U.S. santions do not impose on the existing US investments, but are simple prohibition against "new investment" by "United States person." (5)

Similarly, the International Labour Organization (ILO) also decided to institute a series of measures against the Government of Burma for its failure to comply with an ILO treaty banning forced labour. In November 2000, the ILO voted on the decision to adopt sanctions against the regime, which marked the first time that the ILO has imposed measures against a State. The decision stems from charges contained in a 1998 report by an international commission of inquiry. That report found that "the impunity with which government officials, in particular the military, treat the civilian population as an unlimited pool of unpaid forced labourers and servants at their disposal is part of a political system built on the use of force and intimidation to deny the people of Myanmar democracy and the rule of law." Following up on these charges, the International Labour Conference in June adopted a resolution compelling the Yangon Government to comply with the ILO treaty on forced labour, which was ratified by Burma in 1955. When the regime has responded too little too late to the recommendations contained in the Commission's report in improving human rights situations in the country, the ILO made the decision and applied sanctions on Burma.

13. Direct v. indirect impacts:  Direct

Although sanction regimes adopted by the US government, European Union, and lately, the ILO are fully enforced on the regime, these measures do not cover earlier investment projects such as Yadana gas pipeline. Therefore, the sanctions do not make any impact on the project and its products such as gas export to Thailand.

Due to a severe financial crisis, the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT), the chief customer for Yadana gas, is now prepared to take only about 150 MMcfd of gas, although PTT is committed to purchasing 525 MMcfd of Yadana gas to feed the plant. The dispute centered on whether or not EGAT would be willing to share part of the take-or-pay costs the power plant construction delays have incurred. According to press reports from Bangkok, a June 15 agreement determined that five parties involved in the dispute besides PTT and EGAT, there are also the Finance Ministry and the Independent Power Producers and Small Power Producers groups-would each shoulder part of the take-or-pay burden. Officials says the apportionment of those costs have not been decided yet, but a final decision is expected soon-perhaps this month. The Yadana agreement also stipulates that PTT agrees to accept gas without enrichment until December 2006.

14. Relation of Trade Measure to Environmental Impact

Relation of Trade Measure to Environment: Yes, Direct
Environmental Impact: Yes, Indirect
Is it worth trade-off: No

15. Trade product identification: Gas(6) 

While the agreements refer to Yadana as a single field, earlier indications were of two apparent structures previously referred to as Martaban gas fields. The first discovery occurred shortly after drilling resumed off Myanmar following a suspended period during 1976-82. The MOC-13A well flowed 39 MMcfd of gas from three middle Miocene limestone reservoirs at 6,300-6,700 ft on the 3DA structure. In the course of drilling another 10 wells-five of which flowed more than 5 MMcfd each--a second structure, 3CA, was delineated and condensate reserves confirmed (OGJ, Jan. 19 1987, p. 62). It isn't clear whether the two apparent structures make up a single giant structure. U.S. engineering consultants DeGolyer & MacNaughton recently certified Yadana's recoverable gas reserves at about 5.8 tcf.

Thailand in September 1994 signed a memorandum of understanding with the military junta ruling Myanmar to import Yadana gas in a deal valued at about $500 million/year. At the same time, criticism in Thailand has focused on the purchase price for Yadana gas. Minister of the Prime Minister's Office Savit Bhodivohok said the 1998 price of $3/MMBTU reflects the pipeline delivered cost of the gas. He pegged the wellhead cost for Yadana gas at $1.70/MMBTU, compared with the benchmark price of almost $2/MMBTU for gas produced from Unocal's Erawan gas field in the Gulf of Thailand. Pttep Pres. Viset Choopiban defended his company's equity investment in the project, saying it provides a fairly good internal rate of return of about 15%

16. Economic data:

The military regime in Burma has banked heavily on the anticipated revenue from the pipeline project. One IMF report reveals that the junta has already mortgaged its projected revenues of $200 million a year to repay new loans and finance its 15% stake in the project. This, the IMF suggests, will delay profit-taking until at least 2002. An undisclosed portion of future earnings were also earmarked to finance Rangoon's share of a "three-inone" plan to develop a fertilizer plant, a 300-megawatt power station and a domestic pipeline with Mitsui of Japan and Unocal. But a Rangoon-based economic analyst says this project has been shelved because the Burmese government "simply doesn't have any foreign reserves." And as the Burmese economy deteriorates, the junta can ill-afford any weakening of expected revenues.

17. Impact of trade restriction: High

The US sanctions effectively barred US companies to invest in Burma. The investment from the US tops among five highest investors in Burma, implicating that US action would deprive the junta a significant source of foreign exchange earning.

Foreign Investment in Burma as of December 1999 (in US$ millions)

* Inclusive of enterprises incorporated in British Virgin Islands, Bermuda Islands and Cayman Islands

Meanwhile, the British Foreign Office reiterated a request to Premier that it pull out of another gas project as soon as legally possible. The request was made to Premier Chairman Charles Jamieson as part of British efforts to put further pressure on Burma to improve its human rights record. 

ARCO, which had invested in two gas projects that provided more than $55 million to the country, did not renew its remaining exploration lease in the Gulf of Martaban. In addition, Texaco pulled out of its onshore acreage, reportedly due to sanctions pressure.

 18. Industry sector

Oil and Gas

19. Exporters and importers: Burma and Many

Exporter: A consortium of oil corporations, Total Fina, Unocal, PTTEP, and MOGE
Importer: Electricity Generation Authority of Thailand, Thailand

V. Environmental Factors  

20. Environmental problem type: Pollution and land

According to the scale adopted in Kyoto Declaration signed by nearly 200 environmental groups with regard to climate change, fossil fuels and public funding on five continents, Unocal's activities in Burma falls in the scale between Counts Five to Seven, meaning that the project has permanently altered the pipeline region. Unocal says the 39-mile on-land route of the pipeline was chosen to minimize the environmental impact. "By making a significant detour, the route goes mainly through thinly wooded terrain except for a few kilometres through primary tropical moist forest." Not mentioned is that the Tenasserim region which the pipeline traverses possesses the largest block of intact rainforest in Southeast Asia, according to the World Wildlife Fund. "Indo-Burma" has been added as one of Conservation International's twenty-four "hotspots" of global biodiversity, notable for both tremendous biological diversity and a very high degree of threat.

It possesses 7,000 separate plant species which are found nowhere else. After the pipeline reaches Thailand (where Unocal does not control it) it will plunge through pristine areas including national parks and world heritage sites. The offshore portion of the pipeline in the Andaman Sea also puts the environment at risk. Gas exploration and production produces large quantities of toxic wastes and atmospheric emissions. In the United States the operations would be heavily regulated, but not in Burma.  No independent Environmental Impact Assessments of the project have been conducted or subjected to public scrutiny.On these facts, the Yadana project is also breaching the standard of care set by the Convention on Biological Diversity, breaching the international right to a clean and healthy environment (which includes rights to information and participation in environmental impact assessment) and is committing ecocide.

21. Name, type, and diversity of species

According to a report complied by the Earth Rights International (7), the followign 'endangered species' are threatened by the Yadana project inside Thailand. Different sources vary as to which specific species are endangered, but all demonstrate that the fauna in the pipeline region is highly threatened:

a) Environmental Impact Assessment: 23 endangered species, 42 threatened species
b) Thail Law: 6 Reserved specicies, 424 protected species
c) Burmese law: 106 completely protected species, 105 protected species
d) IUCN Red List: 3 critically endangered speciies, 6 endangered species, 23 vulnerable species;
e) Convention on International Trade in Endangered Speciies: 23 Appendix I species, 64 appendix II species
f) US Law: 20 endangered species, 1 threatened species.

Among the list, the following well-known species are also included:

1) Kitti's hog-nosed bat (Craseonycteris thonglongyai)
2) Regal Crab (Demanietta sirikit)
3) Wild Asian elephants (Elephas maximus)

22. Resource impact and effect:

Low and structural

23. Urgency and lifetime

Low and 100+ years

24. Substitutes:

Energy alternative with low environmental impact

VI. Other Factors

25. Culture - Yes

26. Trans-boundary issues - Yes

27. Rights - Yes

28. Relevant Literature/ Links

Endnote:

1. See National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma (NCGUB v. Unocal, Inc., 176 F.R.D. 329 (C.D. Cal. 1997); John Doe I et al v. Unocal Corp., 963 F. Supp 880 (C.D. Cal. 1997)

2. William J. Aceves. "Doe v. Unocal," The American Journal of International Law., April 1998.

3. Morton Winston, "John Doe vs. Unocal: The boardroom/courtroom battles for ethical turf," Whole Earth; Summer 1999.

4. Earth Rights International. School for Rapes: The Burmese Military and Sexual Violence. 1998

5. James Finch. "US sanctions against Myanmar: Are there viable alternatives?" East Asian Executive Reports, Washington; Feb 15, 1997.

6. Anonymous. "Green light given for Myanmar's first offshore development," Oil & Gas Journal; Tulsa; Feb 13, 1995;

7. Earth Rights International. Total Denial Continues: Earth Rights Abuses Along the Yadana and Yetagun Pipelines in Burma. May 2000.