The International Finance Corporation (IFC), the World Bank Group’s private lending arm, is claiming in court that it cannot be sued for enabling projects that destroy local communities’ health and livelihoods, no matter how much harm it has caused. In April, fishing communities and farmers represented by EarthRights International (ERI) filed suit in Washington, D.C., against the IFC over the destruction of their livelihoods and property and threats to their health caused by the IFC-funded Tata Mundra coal-fired power plant in Gujarat, India. The IFC has now asked the federal court to dismiss the case based on its claim that it is entitled to “absolute immunity.”…The IFC argues that it should not be accountable in court because the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman (CAO), the IFC’s internal accountability mechanism, “provides Plaintiffs with an alternative means of recourse.”