Liquidation Unlimited: Environmental Law and Corporate Purgatory in Peru’s Neo-extractive Era

• In Event: Corporate Critique: Trajectories of the Corporation in Latin American Power Critiques

Abstract

This paper recounts the uncertain fate of a 95-year old Andean smelter to examine the influence of multi-national corporations on contemporary environmental law, labor rights, and democracy in Peru. In 1922, an American firm opened an enormous polymetallic smelter at 12,000 feet in the Peruvian highlands, a techno-industrial feat of its time. Nearly a century later, the Metallurgic Complex of La Oroya occupies a fraught position within Peruvian environmental and labor politics. While still functional, its profitability is at question. Bankrupted and closed in 2010, creditors placed the smelter in “marching liquidation” five years ago and it remains without a buyer today. The problem: La Oroya’s smelter leaches heavy metals and emits sulfur-dioxide at levels far-surpassing current legal benchmarks. The smelter’s last owner, the US Doe Run corporation, attempted to bypass its legally-binding environmental commitments through various means–– political bribes, legal loopholes, local patronage, and finally suing the Peruvian state in an international tribunal. Throughout this process, multi-national NGOs have targeted Doe Run as an exemplar of neo-imperialist, corrupt corporate practices, while workers and political allies continuously attempt to slacken environmental laws, hoping to tempt new bidders. This paper unfurls the complexity of this case to reflect on the so-called “neo-extractive” era in Peru and what a critique of its corporate form reveals about struggles over power and democracy in the region. For La Oroya, the antagonism between corporate praxis and environmental advocacy produced a socio-ecological purgatory, as 5,000 workers continue without jobs and widespread environmental contamination remains indefinitely present.

Author

• Stefanie T Graeter, The University of Chicago