CLIMATE AND ENVIRONMENT

Rhetoric vs Record: Communities Call out Barrick for Falling Short on Human Rights

Representatives of communities impacted by Barrick Gold’s mining operations claim the company systemically ignores their concerns. Despite President and CEO Mark Bristow’s claim that “recognizing and respecting human rights have long been a fundamental value” for the company, people living near Barrick operations in the Dominican Republic, Argentina, Tanzania, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Pakistan, and the United States tell a different story.

As Barrick prepares for its Annual General Meeting on May 2nd, frontline communities are launching a Week of Action from April 11-16 calling out the gap between Barrick’s rhetoric and record. They claim oppressive violence, perpetual water pollution, violations of Indigenous Rights, and destroyed livelihoods. Their experiences call Barrick’ social license to operate into question.

These community leaders are calling on Barrick to turn its rhetoric into reality: to listen to their demands, act transparently, and remedy the harms they have already experienced. Below are their statements.

“Barrick’s proposed Donlin Gold mine puts the Yup’ik and Cup’ik ways of life in harm’s way for the rest of time. Our people rely on our river and fish for food security and risking contamination with toxic slurries stands against our traditional values, which is shown with wide Tribal opposition to the Donlin project. I encourage Barrick to revoke their investment in Donlin Gold and the exploratory efforts 35 miles away. Barrick and partners do not have a social license or a relationship with the Tribes and it is important to understand for-profit Native corporations do not represent our people. Barrick does not have our consent.”

This post was originally published as a press release on April 11, 2023. 

The Global Justice Clinic partners with social movements and community organizations to prevent, challenge, and redress economic, racial, and climate injustice, while training the next generation of social justice lawyers. Statements of the Global Justice Clinic do not purport to represent the views of NYU, if any.

Earthworks is dedicated to protecting communities and the environment from the adverse impacts of mineral and energy development while seeking sustainable solutions.

MiningWatch Canada works toward a world in which Indigenous peoples can effectively exercise their rights to self-determination, communities must consent before any mining activities may occur, mineworkers are guaranteed safe and healthy conditions and there is effective access to justice and reparations for mining harms.

CLIMATE & ENVIRONMENT

Protect Human Rights Defenders and Peasants Facing Land Grabs

Haitian Human Rights Defender Milostène Castin Submits Communication to UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders

On November 18, 2022, Global Justice Clinic client and colleague Milostène Castin submitted a formal communication to the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders, Mary Lawlor. 

The communication and supporting affidavit presents the threats that Mr. Castin has received against his life as a result of his solidarity and activism with peasants—subsistence farmers—including those who have been victim to forced, and often violent, takings of their land. It requests that the Special Rapporteur send an urgent appeal to the Haitian Government regarding Mr. Castin’s case. The submission was made on November 18th in recognition of the Battle of Vertières, which marked the victory of the enslaved population of Haiti overthrowing Napoleon’s army.

Mr. Castin is the Coordinator for AREDE, Action pour la Reforestation et la Defense de l’Environnement (Action for Reforestation and Defense of the Environment) and has collaborated with the Global Justice Clinic for the past ten years. Mr. Castin has tirelessly defended the rights of peasants in rural Haiti, documenting and challenging land seizures and forced displacement. He has also spoken forcefully about the impacts of extractivism and the climate crisis on peasant communities, for example presenting on environmental racism and climate (in)justice in Haiti at NYU in October 2022, at an event to mark the launch of former Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism E. Tendayi Achiume’s final thematic report.

Mr. Castin has been attacked and intimidated due to his work for many years. The Global Justice Clinic works with Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer to represent Mr. Castin in relation to the threats against him.

Mr. Castin held a press conference in Haiti to coincide with his submission to the Special Rapporteur and to call attention to the ongoing threats to peasant rights in Haiti, particularly land grabs and extractivist projects. He continues to call on Haitian authorities to respect and protect the rights guaranteed by the Haitian Constitution of 1987, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas, the International Convention on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, and the Universal Declaration on Human Rights.

CLIMATE & ENVIRONMENT

Global Justice Clinic Stands in Solidarity with Indigenous Peoples’ Demands at COP27

The Global Justice Clinic stands in solidarity with our partners, the South Rupununi District Council, and the broader International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on Climate Change, also known as the Indigenous Peoples’ Caucus (IPC) as they attend COP27 to advocate for the respect of Indigenous rights in the fight against climate change.

In its opening statement at COP27, the IPC drew attention to the dire impact that the climate crisis has on Indigenous Peoples. The statement, delivered by youth representative Nourene Ahmat Yaya, states that “[c]limate change is a matter of life and death . . . [G]lobal temperatures are increasing, threatening genocide for Indigenous Peoples in Africa, the Arctic, Coastal, Small Islands, and all other ecosystems.” The statement asserts the inherent, collective, and internationally recognized rights of Indigenous Peoples to life, self-determination, territories, and free, prior, and informed consent.

The IPC highlights the need for full and direct participation of Indigenous Peoples in UNFCCC processes and in State actions to combat climate change.   The statement calls on States to include clear indicators for drastic reductions of greenhouse gas emissions in their Nationally Determined Contributions to maintain the Paris Agreement’s 1.5-degree global average temperature increase commitment, noting that the Paris Agreement commits states to respect and promote their obligations to Indigenous Peoples when taking steps toward climate action.

The Global Justice Clinic has a long-standing partnership with the South Rupununi District Council (SRDC), the representative body of the indigenous Wapichan people of Guyana. The Wapichan people are the traditional inhabitants of the Rupununi region of southwestern Guyana. They model sustainable relationships with the earth and practice stewardship of their land as a central tenet of their collective identity. The SRDC has repeatedly asserted the importance of land rights and self-determination in furthering the Wapichan people’s ability to continue their traditional way of life, and to ensure the transmission of customary values between generations.

As such, the Global Justice Clinic supports Immaculata Casimero, Alma O’Connell, and Timothy Williams, SRDC representatives attending COP27, in demanding that the Guyanese government fulfill its obligations to grant legal recognition of the Wapichan territory and recognize the Wapichan people’s contribution to combating the global climate crisis. The SRDC’s effective management and continued protection of Wapichan territory is hindered by national policy that does not recognize their rights to their full territory.

The Global Justice Clinic also joins the IPC and Indigenous rights advocates in underscoring the risks that voluntary carbon markets and the sale of  ‘ecosystem services’ pose to Indigenous Peoples’ rights. These market-based climate solutions risk undermining Indigenous Peoples’ land rights and allowing parties in the Global North to continue exploiting the world’s natural resources without meaningfully contributing to real emissions reductions. The Global Justice Clinic echoes the SRDC’s concerns over the lack of meaningful free, prior, and informed consent in engaging villages over Guyana’s Low-Carbon Development Strategy, which aims to use voluntary carbon markets to become a leader in climate change.

We call on governments at COP27 to listen to Indigenous Peoples. We continue to echo the IPC’s demands for swift action to truly reduce emissions and honor the rights and knowledge of the Indigenous caretakers of our planet.

This post was originally published as a press release on November 18, 2022.

CLIMATE & ENVIRONMENT

Racism Causes Climate Vulnerability in Haiti

Collaborative Submission to the UN Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism

On June 20, 2022 the Global Justice Clinic and seven Haitian organizations made a submission  to the UN Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, demonstrating how racism shapes Haitians’ experience of the global climate crisis.  The submission by the Clinic and partners in Haiti — Action pour la Reforestation et la Defense de l’Environnement (Action for Reforestation and Defense of the Environment, AREDE), Commission Épiscopale Nationale Justice et Paix (National Episcopal Commission, Justice and Peace, CE-JILAP), Equal Health, Social Medicine Alumni (SMAH), Kolektif Jistis Min (Justice Mining Collective, KJM), Konbit Ekolojis Sid (Working Together for Ecology, South, KES), Mouvman Fanm Mouvman Peyizan Papay (Women’s Movement of the Peasants’ Movement of Papay, MPP), Sant Altènatif Kominote ak Lapè (Alternative Center for Community and Peace, SAKALA) and Sosyete Kiltirèl Jen Ayisyen (Haitian Youth Cultural Society, SOKIJA) — will inform the Special Rapporteur’s upcoming report to the UN General Assembly on racial and climate justice.

Haiti is consistently named as one of the five countries most vulnerable to climate change in the world. Drawing on the perspectives and experiences of Haitian community organizers, advocates, and social movement leaders, the submission highlights the ways in which the climate crisis is already devastating Haitian communities and reinforcing marginalization — with rural farmers, women, and poor urban communities bearing the worst impacts — and briefly outlines the racist roots of the country’s climate vulnerability. The submission also outlines how racism and xenophobia assure that Haitian migrants experience disproportionate climate vulnerability and harms wherever they live, even beyond Haiti’s borders. An annex presents written statements prepared by contributing Haitian organizations.

As the Special Rapporteur presents her report this fall ahead of COP 27, the submission argues that Haiti exemplifies that just responses to the global climate crisis must center racial justice.

This post was originally published as a press release on July 6, 2022.

CLIMATE & ENVIRONMENT

Indigenous Women in Guyana Commit to Protecting their Lands from Destructive Mining, Deforestation

At the end of an indigenous women’s empowerment conference in the Parikwarnau Village in Guyana from April 4-5, 2022, delegates pledged to take action and demanded the same from the government of Guyana.

The eighty-six women attending the conference committed to advocating for legal recognition of traditional Wapichan lands, continuing to sustainably care for those lands, protecting waters and forests from the effects of mining, combating climate change, and addressing pressing social issues. These commitments and demands were set out in a Call to Action by the female protectors of the Wapichan Wiizi.

The conference was hosted by the women’s arm of the South Rupununi District Council (SRDC) (and Global Justice Clinic partner), the Wapichan Women’s Movement (WWM). Led by Immaculata Casimero and Faye Fredericks, key topics at the conference included indigenous women’s protections under international law, particularly CEDAW, and their role in the fight for climate justice. For example, indigenous women are particularly vulnerable to the food insecurity that has resulted from climate change, as the family’s primary food providers. Women learned together about concepts like “nature-based solutions”—the idea that focusing on protecting nature and biodiversity through sustainable actions like allowing forests to regrow is a way of combating climate change. “Indigenous peoples are the original inventors of ‘nature-based solutions,’” Immaculata Casimero said at the end of the conference. “To combat deforestation, we have captured aerial images of impacted areas and plan to use them in advocacy efforts.”

Casimero and Fredericks reported feeling a palpable shift in the room after the conference; they are confident that indigenous women felt empowered by this experience and will return to their communities and share their knowledge with others. The women’s plans are captured by the concrete commitments and demands listed in the Call to Action, which the SRDC posted on Facebook.

CLIMATE AND ENVIRONMENT

GJC Partners in Haiti and Guyana Testify Before IACHR on Detriment of Extractive Industry in the Caribbean

On October 26, 2021, advocates and experts from five Caribbean countries, Haiti, Jamaica, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, and The Bahamas, presented on the impact of extractive industry activities on human rights and climate change in the Caribbean in a hearing before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). Samuel Nesner, a founding member of Kolektif Jistis Min and long-time partner of NYU Law’s Global Justice Clinic, presented on the serious harm of extraction and land grabs in Haiti to the human rights of rural communities. Another Global Justice Clinic partner and member of the South Rupununi District Council, Immaculata Casimero, presented on the impact of extractive industries on indigenous women.

Samuel Nesner highlighted that for centuries land in Haiti has been expropriated and transferred to the elite with rural communities facing the brunt of the harm. Repeated expropriation of land, also known as land grabbing, has forced farmers and their families from their land, many times under threat of violence and almost always without adequate compensation for the loss of their land and sole source of income. Many believe that the land grabs relate to the content of the soil: much of the area that has been taken from farmers in the rural North is known for its mineral resources. Between 2006 and 2013, the Haitian government granted four U.S. and Canadian companies more than 50 mining permits. Many were granted in flagrant violation of Haitian law, without consultation of the dozen communities who live on the land under permit, and without first conducting an adequate environmental and social impact assessment. Residents of these communities have reported that company representatives entered their land without permission, taking samples and digging holes in their farmland. 

Immaculata Casimero noted that extractive industries pose a particular danger to indigenous peoples, who face longstanding land tenure insecurity. In Immaculata’s own Wapichan territory, many traditional indigenous lands are left unrecognized by the Guyanese government—and therefore vulnerable to big businesses looking to obtain agricultural leases on their land and extractive industries seeking to mine gold from their land. Immaculata emphasized that allowing mining on indigenous land harms their cultural heritage and way of life, and that women are especially affected as the main conveyors and protectors of this cultural heritage. Mining not only damages cultural heritage, but also the community’s health: it has led to mercury poisoning by contaminating crucial headwaters and has compounded the effects of climate change, with flooding, lower crop yields, and higher food insecurity. The presence of new miners has also raised social concerns, such as an increase in gender-based violence and prostitution.

Following the speakers’ presentations, IACHR Commissioners commended the speakers on their efforts to address the urgent issue of the impact of extractive industries in the Caribbean. IACHR Commissioner Margaret May Macauley (Jamaica) expressed her concern about the “complete lack of prior information and prior consultation before the majority, if not all, of these extractive industries commence. That is, the governments of these States enter into contracts with the corporations without prior information to the peoples who reside in the lands, on the lands, or by the seas, and they do not engage in prior consultation with them… The persons are left completely unprotected.” This certainly rings true in Haiti and Guyana, where foreign companies have repeatedly profited off the land of Haitian farmers and the Wapichan people without prior consultation about the use of their land.

February 14, 2022. 

CLIMATE AND ENVIRONMENT

GJC Issues a Letter of Support for Communities in the Dominican Republic Resisting the Expansion of Barrick Gold’s Pueblo Viejo Mine

On October 4, 2021, the Global Justice Clinic and 42 other civil society organizations sent a letter to the Dominican Ministries of Energy and Mines and the Environment and Natural Resources in response to Barrick Gold’s plan to expand its mine in the Dominican Republic. They expressed solidarity with communities located in the area. Residents and allies, including Dominican politicians, academics, and activists, have noted that the site where Barrick proposes to build a tailings dam is the headwater of one of the most important rivers in the country, the Ozama River. In recent weeks, thousands of people have protested the proposed expansion.  This is the second solidarity letter that the Global Justice Clinic has helped to coordinate. 

The first letter, issued in May, raised concern over how the proposed expansion may exacerbate vulnerability to climate change and Barrick’s track record of environmental harm.  Five months later, resistance against the proposed expansion has grown.

This post was originally published as a press release on October 4, 2021.