Global Witness “Missing Voices” report identifies mining as the biggest industry driver of defenders killed in 2023
Video: Laura Furones: “The question around who is responsible really is one of the key questions.”
The Global Witness report — Missing Voices: The violent erasure of land and environment defenders – released this week says: “Establishing a direct relationship between the murder of a defender and specific corporate interests remains difficult. However, we were able to identify mining as the biggest industry driver by far, with 25 defenders killed after opposing mining operations in 2023. We were able to connect over 40% of killings in Mexico in 2023 to defenders opposing mining operations.”
On Democracy Now! today, Laura Furones, the lead author of the Global Witness report, further commented: “It’s very difficult to establish direct links between the murder of a defender and a specific corporate sector. However, what we have been able to identify for 2023 is that mining came up as the largest corporate sector linked to defenders. And this is also true for our historical data. Mining sector is number one over the last 12 years.”
Are there other findings, specifically in relation to Canadian mining companies, that we can correlate with the Global Witness report?
1- The Government of Canada has documented in its Canadian Mining Assets chart that there were 132 companies operating in Mexico in 2021. The Canadian Mining Journal estimates higher, reporting “there are currently over 205 companies with Canadian capital established in Mexico.” That same article says that “almost 70% of foreign mining companies operating in the country have Canadian interests.” This preponderance does not implicate any specific Canadian mining companies, but it should set a context of concern.
2- In 2016-17, the Justice and Corporate Accountability Project found in its report The Canada Brand: Violence and Canadian Mining Companies in Latin America that over the period 2000-15 there were incidents involving 28 Canadian companies, 30 deaths they classify as “targeted”, 363 injuries during protests and confrontations, and 709 cases of “criminalization”, including legal complaints, arrests, detentions and charges.
3- In March 2021, Guadalupe Fuentes López reported in Sinembargo.mx: “Mexico tops the list of countries with the highest number of mining conflicts in Latin America, with a total of 58 cases, of which 29 belong to Canadian mining projects, according to the Observatory of Mining Conflicts of Latin America.”
4- A preliminary review in July 2024 by PBI-Canada of the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRCC) database found that 21 Canadian companies are implicated in 88 attacks against human rights defenders over the last nine years. Most of them are mining companies. The BHRRC defines an attack as including surveillance, arbitrary detention, intimidation and threats, beatings and violence, and killings.
5- This summer, Tavia Grant reported in The Globe and Mail: “[The office of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders] has registered 15 cases, between June, 2019, and March, 2022, of retaliation against human-rights advocates that [Special Rapporteur Mary Lawlor] alleges can be linked to the activities of Canadian mining abroad. She singled out Canadian embassies, saying many have failed to respond adequately to those who raise serious concerns about the impacts of mining and oil activities abroad. Canada introduced ‘Voices at Risk’ guidelines in 2019, aimed at supporting human-rights defenders and giving advice to Canadian diplomats working overseas, but she says it hasn’t been properly implemented.”
The Global Witness Missing Voices report stresses the need to “Systematically identify, document, and analyse attacks against land and environmental defenders.” This presumably includes a greater emphasis and putting more resources toward identifying the perpetrators of violence and holding them accountable.
At this point, Voices at Risk: Canada’s Guidelines on Supporting Human Rights Defenders appears to insufficiently reflect the context of serious concern and mildly notes missions (embassies, consulates) should “consider links” and “the identification of Canadian entity involvement in alleged or apparent human rights violations or abuses.” Voices at Risk also notes somewhat passively: “the mission should refer to Canada’s Corporate Social Responsibility strategy if it becomes involved in the case of a land rights and environmental HRD who speaks out against a Canadian-based company.”
We continue to follow this.
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