Cases / Mining · Bolivia · 2025
Bolivia's legislature withholds approval of CATL-linked lithium contracts
Short record: the main facts, with sources. A full case file has not been prepared.
Nature's voice · report
No measurement of the harm done to me here is on record.
Did nature suffer? Not measured.
Not on record
- The record does not name which of my species, waters, soils or forests were harmed.
Bolivia's legislature has not approved lithium contracts with a consortium that includes CATL and with Russia's Uranium One, and the Paz government is reviewing them. The sources reviewed do not say what the deals would do to nature.
What?
Bolivia's legislature did not approve lithium contracts involving the CBC consortium, which includes CATL, and Russia's Uranium One. Reporte Minero
Where?
Bolivia Reporte Minero
When?
November 2025 Reporte Minero
Who?
Gained
None on recordLost
None on recordHarmed
None on recordWhy?
Not stated in the sources reviewed.
How?
Lithium contracts with foreign parties needed legislative approval, which the legislature did not give. Reporte Minero
5 of 6 questions answered from the record · open: who
What happened
The record, in order.
Reporte Minero reported in November 2025 that Bolivia's legislature had not approved lithium contracts with the CBC consortium, which includes CATL, or with Russia's Uranium One.
The same report said the Paz government was reviewing the contracts, and its headline described Bolivia as reconsidering lithium agreements with China, Russia and the United States.
In court and with insurers
Every proceeding and every insurer decision on record.
Lawsuits and rulings
No court case on record. No court has ruled on this case.
Insurers
No insurer decision on record.
What we don't know
Undisclosed, unproven, untried: recorded as data.
Nature
- Not measured Harm to nature: The record holds no measurement of harm to nature.
Record
- None on record The sources reviewed do not say what the contracts commit Bolivia to, or what environmental terms they contain.
- None on record The sources reviewed do not give the dates the contracts were signed or the amounts involved.
- None on record The sources reviewed do not say who would have gained from the contracts.
Did the harm stop?
Not stated in the sources reviewed.
Who paid?
Not stated in the sources reviewed.
Sources
Voices on record: — Company or project— Government and regulators— Courts✓ Press and investigations— Communities and civil society— Researchers
Press and investigations
- Bolivia replantea acuerdos de litio con China, Rusia y EEUUReporte Minero · 2025-11
Connected cases
Related matters, and cases linked to this one through the same organisations, with the role each played in both.
- Bolivia's decree 3973 allowed forest clearing and controlled burns before 2024 fires Bolivia · 2019–2024
- Government of Bolivia (Paz government) (Government) — here: reviewing the contracts; there: Issued decree 3973 authorising clearing and controlled burning
- Halmahera nickel complex (IWIP, Weda Bay) and the Hongana Manyawa Indonesia · 2018–2026
- CATL (Company) — here: member of the CBC consortium; there: Partner in the June 2025 battery plant
- Mkuju River uranium mine and the Selous boundary change Tanzania · 2009–2025
- Uranium One (Company) — here: counterparty to a lithium contract; there: Ran the project in 2012 on behalf of ARMZ