Mining and sustainability: the people impacts Beck Wallace, CAFOD Mining On Top: Africa - London Summit 25-26 June | London

1. Impacts of mining on
human rights & the environment
Mining on Top Conference
26 June 2013

2. Business & human rights
Minimum standard UN Framework & Guiding Principles
3 pillars: State Duty to Protect
Corporate Responsibility to Respect
Access to Remedy
UNGP integrated into OECD guidelines, ISO 26000, GRI &
IFC Sustainability Policy & Performance Standards.
States currently designing strategies for implementation.

3. State Duty to Protect
“...against those [human rights] abuses, including
those by business, through appropriate policies,
regulation, and adjudication.”
Enforcement, periodic review, fill any gaps.

4. Corporate Responsibility to Respect
• Respect all internationally recognised rights (principle 12)
• Avoid infringing on the rights of others
• Prevent/mitigate adverse impacts directly linked to
business operations, products or services and also
indirect impacts through business relationships.
• Applies to all businesses irrespective of whether the State
is meeting its duty to protect or not.
• CSR projects cannot be used to ‘off-set’ human rights
abuses.

5. Corporate Responsibility to Respect
Each company should have in place:
• A human rights policy
• A human rights due diligence process
“to identify, prevent, mitigate and account for
how they address their impacts on human rights.”

6. Access to Remedy
• GP 26: “States should take appropriate steps to
ensure the effectiveness of domestic judicial
mechanisms when addressing human rights-related
claims against business, including considering ways to
reduce legal, practical and other relevant barriers that
could lead to a denial of access to remedy.”
• Access to remedy - both judicial and non-judicial
mechanisms – including a more influential role for
National Human Rights Institutions as well as a set of
criteria for company-based grievance mechanisms
for individuals and communities.

7. • Interlinked environmental & social impacts
• Social licence requires environmental compliance
• However, environmental compliance does not
necessarily deliver social licence
• Human rights due diligence can identify potential
impacts on rights holders and this can be used as a
basis to mitigate social risks
• FPIC – also identifies and can be used to mitigate -
all affected communities - continuously informed.
• Meeting legislative requirements – eg: Companies Act
2006: directors listed companies required to report
social, human rights & environmental impacts

8. Example: Right to water
• Volume
• Quality
• Access / control of supply

9. This gold mine in Honduras had a license for cost-free use of
up to 220 gallons of water every minute

10. Right to water
But livestock & farmers struggled when riverbed turned dry

11. •Unknown source of lead in water supply & in blood
•Cumulative impacts of mining not scientifically understood
Right to Health

12. Right to earn a decent living...
...including adequate food...

13. • ASM in cooperatives better
salary & benefits than LSM
• Transparency from outset can
help manage expectations

14. Social licence priorities
• Both positive and negative human rights impacts can
originate from the core operations of both LSM & ASM
• CSR projects cannot offset the corporate responsibility to
respect human rights – due diligence is key
• Power relations – who decides if a mining project goes
ahead and on what terms? An essential part of this is clear
communication about the project from day 1.

15. Beck Wallace
Lead Analyst: Extractive Industries & Corruption
bwallace@cafod.org.uk