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Sethusamudram Project
: An Appeal to the International Human rights Community
 India
is going ahead with its Sethusamudram project to dig a canal through the Palk
Strait, the narrow strip of sea that run between the southern coast of India and
the northern coast of Sri Lanka. Such a canal will allow large ships to navigate
through this strait rather than going around the island of Sri Lanka. This
project is an activity that is covered by the United Nations Convention on
Transboundary Economic Impact Assessment (EIA) (www.unece.org/env/eia/eia.htm).
The following extracts from the Convention are relevant to this activity.
1. The preamble to the Convention says, ".... to improve the quality of
information presented to decision makers so that environmentally sound decisions
can be made paying careful attention to minimizing significant adverse impact,
particularly in a transboundary context."
 2. In its appendix of list of activities to be covered by the convention, which
it states is an integral part of the convention, the following activity is
included: "Trading ports and also inland waterways and ports for inland-waterway
traffic which permit the passage of vessels of over 1,350 tonnes."
3. Article 3 of the Convention on Notification promotes early notification of
the proposed
activity to the affected party by the party of origin, and should include,
- Relevant information regarding the environmental impact assessment procedure,
including an indication of the time schedule for transmittal of comments, and
- Relevant information on the proposed activity and its possible significant
adverse transboundary impact.
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4. In its list of criteria to be considered in assessing environmental impact,
the convention states,
Effects: proposed activities with particularly complex and potentially adverse
effects, including those giving rise to serious effects on humans or on valued
species or organisms, those which threaten the existing or potential use of an
affected area and those causing additional loading which cannot be sustained by
the carrying capacity of the environment.
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Given the above criterion and the fact that the proposed canal is only a few
miles from the coast of northern Sri Lanka, we believe the case of Transboundary
context is clearly established. NorthEast of Sri Lanka is the region that will
be most affected by this project.
The political situation in this region is also very fluid at present. There is a
defacto government in this region. The notification procedure has not included
this defacto government. Neither the government of India nor the government of
Sri Lanka has taken any effort to inform the public in the NorthEast about the
impact of the project. Given these facts, we appeal that one of the following
two options be adopted.
 1. Halt the activity until the political situation in the NorthEast is resolved
so that the affected parties in the transboundary context can fully participate
in the assessment and decision process.
OR
2. Accept the defacto state in the Northeast as an affected party in the
Environmental Impact Assessment process and include it in the assessment process
as specified in the convention.
Failing to follow neither of the above is a violation of the rights of the
people in Northeast and we call upon the international human rights community to
involve itself in rectifying this violation of a people's rights.
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