On Friday, August 19, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and International Indian Treaty Council requested the United Nations help them in ending the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, according to Indian Country Today Media Network (ICT).

The two groups filed an appeal to four U.N. human rights special rapporteurs claiming the $3.78 billion, 1,172-mile long pipeline was creating “ongoing threats and violations to the human rights of the Tribe, its members and its future generations.” These threats include pollution of the Missouri River, the tribe’s water source which the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers approved to have the pipeline run under in July.  

“Its proposed route is in close proximity to the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation and the Missouri River, the main source of water for the Tribe,” the appeal said, according to ICT. “This pipeline’s construction is being carried out without the Tribe’s free, prior and informed consent in direct contradiction to their clearly expressed wishes.”

For now, the developer Dakota Access LLC has paused building the pipeline until a federal court hears from the Sioux people on Wednesday, August 24 regarding a lawsuit they filed against the Corps.

Read the full story from ICT here.