NEW YORK, New York, March 30, 2018 — In an op-ed published in the New York Times today, Ellie Happel, the Haiti Project Director of the Global Justice Clinic, suggests that Haiti rejects industrial metal mining, arguing that the small island nation is uniquely vulnerable to the consequences that mining poses to human rights and the environment. Although there is no industrial gold, silver, or other metal mine in Haiti yet, companies have invested millions of dollars in exploration activities, and the Haitian government is gearing up to pass a new mining law that would unlock the sector.

One year ago today, El Salvador became the first country in the world to ban metal mining. Haiti, Happel says, should consider following suit.

Industrial mining would inevitably displace hundreds, if not thousands of families. Haiti is the most environmentally degraded country in the hemisphere and is one of the nations most threatened by climate change in the world. It is densely populated and already faces a lack of safe housing and arable land. Corruption is well documented. The government has yet to demonstrate that it will defend the interests of its people in the face of such a high risk industry.

It is in this context that the Haitian government repeatedly names mining as key to economic development, but El Salvador reminds Haiti—and the world—that mining may, in fact, bring more misery than benefit.

Read Happel’s op-ed in the New York Times.

Learn more about the Global Justice Clinic’s work on the human rights impacts of metal mining in Haiti.

For more information, please contact: Ellie Happel (English, Kreyòl, Spanish), NYU Global Justice Clinic, ellie.happel@nyu.edu, +1-206-816-0544, @elliehappel

About the Global Justice Clinic

The Global Justice Clinic at NYU School of Law provides high quality, professional human rights lawyering services to individual clients and nongovernmental and intergovernmental human rights organizations, partnering with groups based in the United States and abroad. Working as legal advisers, counsel, co-counsel, or advocacy partners, Clinic students work side-by-side with human rights activists from around the world. The Clinic has worked on human rights issues in Haiti since its founding.

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