The article is an update and reissue of two chapters of the report Large Dams in the Americas: Is the Cure Worse than the Disease, written by Jacob Kopas and Astrid Puentes Riaño. The article identifies “the main obligations, standards, decisions and international law applicable to large hydropower plants that our governments should use in the planning, implementation, operation and closure of these projects."
The article is divided into two parts. Chapter I offers an overview of the main standards, the legal framework of international human rights and environmental law as well as the decisions and international jurisprudence applicable to the cases of large dams. In Chapter II, this framework is applied to the cases of human rights abuses caused by the degradation of the environment through the development of a large dam.