Escobal Silver Mine, Guatemala

Earthworks and its partners seek to enforce a pivotal 2018 decision of the Guatemalan Constitutional Court that suspended operations at the Escobal Silver Mine and ordered consultation with the Xinka indigenous people. This project aims to create an opening to expand and ensure a comprehensive consultation process for the Xinka people that considers the entire scope of the mine’s impacts, with respect for international standards and indigenous self-determination. The process is already a source of many learnings and, if successful, will establish precedent for other indigenous communities facing similar threats from mining or other large-scale projects.

In recognition of its work to secure the cultural and territorial rights of the Xinka and other Indigenous peoples, the Parliament of the Xinka People was awarded the 2023 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award.

organizations

• Earthworks, earthworks.org, USA

• The Xinka People’s Parliament of Guatemala, Guatemala  

• Institute for Policy Studies – Global Economy Program, ips-dc.org/global-economy, USA

• Maritimes-Guatemala Breaking the Silence Network (BTS), breakingthesilenceblog.com, Canada 

Palm Oil Plantations, Peru

The project seeks to enforce an order to halt palm oil companies from conducting large-scale illegal deforestation and land grabs in the Peruvian Amazon, so that national policy and legal reforms defending indigenous land tenure can advance. With FECONAU driving the strategy from the ground up, IDL and its partners will employ a powerful interplay between judicial and non-judicial interventions to apply pressure across the corporate supply chain to curb land acquisitions and access information pivotal to criminal investigations of illegal deforestation. Leveraging coordinated input from affected indigenous communities, the project holds the potential to formulate national palm oil policy that protects indigenous rights, closes loopholes in national law that allow fraudulent titling, and strengthens corporate accountability in an industry with a track record of harmful impacts on communities.

In July 2021, FPP published a Storymap as a powerful tool to show deforestation and encroachment from illegal land grabs in Perú. Read more here.

organizations

• Instituto de Defensa Legal (IDL), idl.org.pe, Peru

• Federacion de Comunidades Nativas del Ucayali y Afluentes (FECONAU), feconau.blogspot.com, Peru

• Forest Peoples Programme (FPP), forestpeoples.org, England

Lamu Port, Kenya

Natural Justice and its partners will leverage a recent landmark judgement of the Kenyan High Court ensuring participation of affected communities in the redesign of a major infrastructure project, Lamu Port, and the mitigation of its negative health and environmental impacts and loss of livelihood for local communities. The project will co-design and pilot a robust process of public participation and a system of community monitoring to track compliance, creating a locus of enforcement between the local communities and government agencies. Building on the momentum and visibility generated by one of the most powerful rulings on environmental democracy, the project creates an opening for reshaping and expanding public participation and rights protection in major investment and infrastructure projects in the region and beyond.

orgaNIZations

• Natural Justice, naturaljustice.org/countries/kenya, Kenya

• Save Lamu, savelamu.org, Kenya

• Katiba Law Institute, katibainstitute.org, Kenya

• Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide (ELAW), elaw.org, USA

Oaxaca Wind Farms, Mexico

ProDESC, in collaboration with ECCHR, seeks enforcement of two decisions of the Mexican Supreme Court and Federal Court nullifying flawed consultation processes that dispossessed indigenous peoples of their lands. With a layered strategy in Mexico pushing for development of strong consultation standards coupled with an investor advocacy strategy in Europe to leverage due diligence and accountability mechanisms, ProDESC and ECCHR hope to generate pressure on energy corporations to ensure adequate consultation. The project holds the potential to create a breakthrough by setting an important legal precedent on free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) in Mexico, and by extension to lend support for other efforts in the region to establish rights-respecting consultation processes on extractive projects.

ORGANIZATIONS

• ProDESC, prodesc.org.mx/index.php/es, Mexico

• European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), ecchr.eu/en, Germany

Carajás Mining and Steel Corridor, Brazil

JnT and FIDH will press for full implementation of a Brazilian superior court judgement and resettlement agreement, providing long-sought redress for the damaging health, livelihood and environmental impacts of the pig-iron smelting operations on the community of Piquiá de Baixo. The work is comprised of monitoring government authorities to complete the resettlement, supply chain mapping and transnational advocacy targeting the Vale mining company and its corporate buyers, and using augmented reality to mobilize consumers and key constituencies in Brazil and Europe. In addition to relocating and providing compensation to the affected community, the enforcement strategy would advance remedial measures to reduce ongoing hazardous levels of industrial pollution, reducing future harms. The project pilots a model of shared responsibility between the state and corporations for remedy that other communities affected by industrial environmental hotspots could replicate.  Following the recent collapse of the Brumadinho tailings dam in January 2019, Justiça nos Trilhos and FIDH are coordinating international action on behalf of communities affected by Vale’s operations, highlighting the responsibility not only of the Brazilian mining corporation but also that of its global business partners and the companies in its supply chain.

In recognition of its rigorous work in close collaboration with the affected communities under challenging conditions, Justiça nos Trilhos has recently been named the first recipient of the inaugural global Human Rights and Business Award. 

ORGANIZATIONS

• Justiça nos Trilhos, justicanostrilhos.org, Brazil

• International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), fidh.org/en, France

Enforcement Strategy Convening and Learning Exchange

The project aims to leverage the convening power and outreach of ESCR-Net’s Strategic Litigation and Corporate Accountability Working Groups to facilitate a cross-regional learning exchange on enforcement strategies between SAGE Fund grantees and ESCR-Net members, providing valuable input into the SAGE learning and documentation project, disseminate lessons to ongoing implementation work in the field, and support peer-to-peer learning.

ORGANIZATION

• International Network for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ESCR-Net), escr-net.org, United States