PBI-United Kingdom report: “human rights defenders need a UK law on mandatory due diligence”
Our colleagues at Peace Brigades International-United Kingdom have produced a 40-page investigative report titled: The Case For Change: Why human rights defenders need a UK law on mandatory due diligence.
The six examples in the report (the Cerrejón coal mine and Amerisur oilfields in Colombia, the Eólica del Sur wind farm and Soledad-Dipolos gold mine in Mexico, the Grasberg gold and copper mine in Indonesia, and the Los Pinares iron oxide mine in Honduras) implicate Anglo American PLC, Fresnillo PLC and Amerisur PLC, as well as the Australian company BHP and the Swiss company Glencore, all of which are listed on the London Stock Exchange; financing by the British bank HSBC; the British-Australian mining company Rio Tinto; as well as the opaque supply chain that makes it hard to know if iron and steel from the controversial Los Pinares megaproject could enter the UK.
COLOMBIA/ the Cerrejón coal mine: Anglo American, BHP, and Glencore
“One of the world’s largest coal mines, Carbones del Cerrejón (Cerrejón), has been found to have violated environmental and human rights repeatedly, including through air pollution, water contamination, and a failure to respect the land and cultural rights of Indigenous Wayúu and Afro-Colombian communities. Human rights defenders have been threatened and attacked after raising awareness of these abuses and campaigning against the mine. From the year 2000 to 2022, Cerrejón was owned by mining companies on the UK stock exchange: Anglo American, BHP and Glencore.”
Note: Coal from the Cerrejon mine is still imported to the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. NB Power has been buying approximately 500,000 tonnes of coal per year from Cerrejón since the mid 1990s.Coal exports from Colombia to Canada reportedly increased after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Photo: In July 2022, PBI-Canada met with Rosa Maria Mateus Parra, a lawyer with the José Alvear Restrepo Lawyers’ Collective (CCAJAR), a PBI-Colombia accompanied organization that launched a constitutional challenge against the Cerrejon mine.
MEXICO/ the Eólica del Sur wind farm: HSBC
“Mexico’s biggest wind farm, Eólica del Sur, exemplifies why even supposedly ‘green’ business projects require effective regulation, and why any law on due diligence needs to cover the financial sector. Indigenous communities affected by the wind farm allege their right to free, prior and informed consent was violated and that the country’s inadequate administrative and judicial systems failed to uphold this right. Project opponents and human rights defenders have faced violence and intimidation – raising serious questions about whether conditions were in place to ensure effective participation and consultation. British bank HSBC was one of the original lenders to Mareña Renovables, and remained so once this wind project evolved to become Eólica del Sur.”
Note: HSBC Bank Canada, the Canadian subsidiary of HSBC, was the seventh largest bank in Canada with corporate headquarters in Vancouver. In March 2024, the Royal Bank of Canada acquired HSBC Canada.
COLOMBIA/ oilfields in the Putumayo Amazon basin: Amerisur
“Amerisur’s oil exploitation has reportedly caused pollution and spills in the fragile ecosystem of the Colombian Amazon. Forcibly displaced communities allege collusion between the company and illegal armed groups, while human rights defenders have been subject to assassination attempts and the government has been forced to provide emergency protection for activists. Amerisur is a UK-listed PLC.”
Note: Partners of Amerisur have included the Canadian companies Canacol Energy Ltd. and Pacific Exploration & Production (now Frontera Energy). Amerisur also has a longstanding relationship with the Royal Bank of Canada.
Photo: Amazon basin defender Jani Silva is accompanied by the Inter-Church Justice and Peace Commission, which in turn is accompanied by PBI-Colombia.
MEXICO/ the Soledad-Dipolos gold mine: Fresnillo PLC/ Minera Penmont
“Minera Penmont operated the Soledad-Dipolos open-pit gold mine located in the territory of the El Bajío Ejido in Mexico, between 2010 and 2013. When mining exploration began on communal lands, local communities began to defend their rights. Agrarian Courts have ruled that Penmont were operating on the land illegally without the community’s permission, ordering Penmont to leave the land and compensate the residents. However, land and environmental defenders calling for accountability have faced a series of reprisals including arbitrary detention, criminalisation, and killings. Minera Penmont is a subsidiary of Fresnillo PLC, a UK-incorporated company listed on the London Stock Exchange.”
Note: Vanguard is one of the top institutional investors in Fresnillo. Vanguard Investments Canada Inc. has an office in Toronto.
INDONESIA/ the Grasberg gold and copper mine: Rio Tinto
“The Grasberg Mine in West Papua, Indonesia, has been subject to allegations of major environmental devastation and severe human rights violations. Indigenous communities accuse the mine of polluting rivers and causing health issues. Human rights defenders and Indigenous communities protesting the mine’s operations since the 1970s have faced repression including torture, displacement and threats, amid ongoing militarisation. British-Australian multinational mining company Rio Tinto was involved with the Grasberg mine from 1996-2018.”
Note: The Bank of Montreal and the Royal Bank of Canada are institutional holders of shares in Rio Tinto. The company also operates mines in British Columbia, the Northwest Territories, Quebec and Newfoundland/Labrador.
HONDURAS/ the Los Pinares iron oxide mine: opaque supply chains make it hard to know if this iron and steel imported into the UK
“Communities have opposed the Los Pinares mine for more than a decade, concerned at the environmental impact of open pit iron oxide extraction in the heart of a national park. The reprisals faced by these human rights defenders have been brutal: as well as threats, smears and the imprisonment of eight activists for more than two years in a high security prison, four project opponents paid the ultimate price when they were murdered in 2023 and 2024. …In 2020, a collaboration between Contracorriente, the Centro Latinoamericano de Investigación Periodística (CLIP) and the Univision Investigative Unit exposed links between the Honduran companies [involved in the megaproject] and the largest steel producer in the United States, the Nucor Corporation. The current lack of mandatory supply chain transparency means that it is not clear which markets this steel is reaching, including whether it is ending up in the UK. If this were the case, then UK companies could very well be contributing to these harms, or they could be directly linked to them.”
Note: Investors in Nucor have included the Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec (an institutional investor that manages the Québec Pension Plan), the Royal Bank of Canada, the Bank of Montreal, and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.
Photo: PBI-Honduras has accompanied Municipal Committee for the Defence of Common and Public Goods of Tocoa (CMDBCPT) processes and the Guapinol River defenders since January 2019. PBI-Canada visited Guapinol on October 30, 2024.
The Honduran company EMCO has specified: “After 8 years of work, Phase 1 of raw iron production as a raw material began in Los Pinares and at the end of 2021 Phase 2 will start to export semi-processed iron to the United States.” In 2022, Canada imported $723 million worth of iron ore from the United States. Canada is also a large exporter of petroleum coke, the energy source that will power this megaproject.
Photo: PBI-Canada observes the construction of the iron oxide pelletizing plant in Guapinol, October 2024.
Due diligence in the UK and Canada
While Toronto-based BMO Asset Management is one of the companies that has called on the British government to “urgently bring forward” a new UK law ensuring that human rights and environmental due diligence is carried out, its relationship to and management of Bank of Montreal exchange traded funds raises concerns.
The Canadian Network on Corporate Accountability (CNCA) has called for mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence legislation. The CNCA’s model law provides a blueprint for this legislation. PBI-Canada is a member of the CNCA. PBI-Canada has also supported the call for a United Nations Binding Treaty on business and human rights (opposed by the Government of Canada).
To read the full report by PBI-UK, go to The Case For Change: Why human rights defenders need a UK law on mandatory due diligence.
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