Mining and resource sector: Respect rights to freedom of association, assembly and protest

(Geneva) - Human rights defenders, civil society actors and affected communities who work to prevent, expose or seek remedy for human rights violations by mining and resource companies are themselves coming under increasing attack, according to a new submission by the International Service for Human Rights.

The submission makes concrete recommendations to end such attacks and ensure that corporate accountability activists are able to exercise their rights to freedom of association, assembly and peaceful protest without restriction.

The submission, which is intended to inform a major forthcoming report by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Association and Assembly, documents over ten emblematic case studies which demonstrate the ways in which the rights to freedom of association, assembly and peaceful protest are being violated by and on behalf of the extractive industries through physical attacks on human rights defenders, the passage of restrictive anti-assembly laws, and the pursuit of vexatious legal suits.

'From the passage of regressive anti-protest legislation in Australia and Myanmar, to physical attacks against human rights defenders and communities protesting major development projects in Mexico and Sierra Leone, to the arbitrary detention of corporate accountability activists in Niger and Russia, the rights to freedom of assembly and association in the context of natural resource exploitation are under attack,' said ISHR's Michael Ineichen.

The ISHR submission builds on a previous report by the former UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders, Margaret Sekaggya, which identified 'defenders working on land and environmental issues in connection with extractive industries and construction and development projects' as facing particularly 'high risk of violations' and expressed deep 'concern about the increased criminalization of social protest often in connection with the peaceful expression of opposition to public or private development projects'.

The submission makes a range of concrete recommendations to ensure that human rights defenders and other civil society actors working and advocating in the context of the extractive industries are able to operate in a safe and enabling environment, and to freely exercise their rights to freedom of association, assembly and peaceful protest without restriction or attack.

The recommendations include the following:

• States should take specific measures to protect and support the work of human rights defenders who work on issues of corporate accountability, who claim and seek to exercise their right to participate in decision-making processes, or who voice their opposition to business activities or development projects, including by guaranteeing their right to peaceful protest and to freedom of expression, association and assembly.
• States should enact specific laws and policies to effectively implement the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders at the national level and should review and, where necessary, amend relevant legislation and its implementation in order to ensure compliance with international human rights law.
• States should also develop, implement and monitor National Action Plans on Business and Human Rights in close consultation with human rights defenders. Such National Action Plans should include concrete steps and measures to ensure that human rights defenders and others who advocate or protest in relation to corporate accountability issues, particularly in relation to the extractive sector, are protected and supported.
• States should repeal requirements of authorisation (as opposed to notification) in order to convene a peaceful assembly, and establish and safeguard the ability to convene public, peaceful assemblies without notice in exceptional circumstances.
• States should prohibit the excessive use of force against protesters and prohibit the use of any force merely because a protest is ‘unauthorised’ or has not complied with notification requirements where they exist.
• Corporations should protect human rights defenders, including by consulting and engaging with them so as to identify, mitigate and remedy the adverse human rights impacts of their operations.
• Corporations must respect the right of human rights defenders and other civil society actors to protest against business activities and refrain from obstructing or interfering with their legitimate activities in this regard. This extends to ensuring that private security firms acting for or on behalf of the corporation are not involved in attacks against human rights defenders or other human rights abuses and, in the case of investors, should include due diligence to ensure they are not indirectly financing any such attacks or abuses.
• Corporations must comply with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and, in the case of corporations working in the extractive and resource sectors, fully implement the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights, a multi-stakeholder initiative to address the risk of human rights abuses arising from security arrangements in the oil, gas and mining industries.
• Corporations must also engage in meaningful consultations with ‘potentially affected groups and other relevant stakeholders’ to identify the human rights impacts of their work, including by recognising their right to freedom of association.
• Investors should, as part of their human rights impact assessment, consult with human rights defenders, and ensure that they do not invest in projects that result in violations of human rights, or undermine the rights of human rights defenders and affected communities, including their rights to freedom of assembly and of association.
• All relevant stakeholders, including States, corporations, investors, and civil society, with expert input and leadership from the two UN Special Rapporteur’s on human rights defenders and on freedom of association and assembly as well as their regional counterparts should initiate a process towards the development of best practice guidelines on extractive industry engagement with human rights defenders. These should include, but not be limited to, project conceptualisation and approval, human rights impact assessments and human rights due diligence, monitoring and remediation.

Contact: Michael Ineichen, International Service for Human Rights, on [email protected] or + 41 78 827 77 86