A/HRC/28/65 legal traditions. These barriers have been overcome in only some instances and, in those cases, usually as a result of innovative approaches adopted by lawyers, the patience of victims and responses by perceptive judges. 57 54. If TNC activities are criminally justiciable and reasonable compensation is enforceable, the issue of extraterritoriality may not arise. However, in cases of indirect violations of the right to food, for instance by way of voluntary displacement or not being able to farm because of a lack of access to necessary resources such as water because of privatization, or seeds because of a monopoly by TNCs, human rights adjudication becomes vital. Consequently, such remedies should provide enforceable compensation and restitution. The remedies currently available for individuals whose economic, social and cultural rights are violated are somewhat limited. Considerable improvements in this regard are essential for cases involving violations of the right to food to be protected from violations committed by foreign and national actors.58 3. Private arbitrations and dispute mechanisms 55. In relation to IFIs, private dispute mechanisms have been developed, including the establishment of an ombudsperson for international finance corporations, as have complaint mechanisms, such as the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) and the contact point procedure under the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises.59 Under these mechanisms ICSID States and private actors are on an equal footing. The flip side is that corporations are in a position to sue governments. 56. Developing countries are increasingly subject to dispute procedures brought by private companies. For example, high water prices and poor water quality following the privatization of the water supply in the Bolivian town of Cochabamba, culminated in protests against Aguas de Tunari, a subsidiary of the United States firm Bechtel.60 The Government succumbed to public pressure and reversed the decision to privatize, which prompted the company to bring the Government before ICSID. The case posed the fundamental question of whether the property rights of the company could trump the rights to food and to access water and sanitation. In the end, civil society pressure led to a settlement and, as a result, Bolivian water laws were amended with the 2009 Constitution guaranteeing the right to access to water. 61 57. Other examples include a lawsuit brought by the Oceana Gold mining company against El Salvador through ICSID for US$301 million for failure to grant a mining permit. It was alleged that the project posed a risk to the country’s livelihood. Having failed to change the domestic law to relax regulation, the company initiated arbitration measures to pressure El Salvador into paying for lost exploration costs and future profits. 62 These cases demonstrate how intervention is necessary to prevent democratic rights from being undermined by global norms. 57 58 59 60 61 62 16 Ibid., p. 5. Skogly, “Right to adequate food”, p. 355. Malcolm Langford et al. (eds.), Global Justice, State Duties: The Extraterritorial Scope of Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights in International Law (Cambridge University Press, 2013), p. 7. Aguas del Tunari S.A. v. Republic of Bolivia, ICSID Case No. ARB/02/3. Andreas Fischer-Lescano and Kolja Moller (eds.), The struggle for transnational social rights: land grabbing and the right to food (2014). International Allies Against Mining in El Salvador, “Call for international support”. Available from www.stopesmining.org/j25/index.php/campaigns/2014-international-month-of-action.