Children exposed to mining industry pollution in Peru. The debate on mining is raging throughout Latin America. Credit: Milagros Salazar/IPS

By Leila Lemghalef
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 30 2015 (IPS)

A recent case study on Canadian mining abuses in Latin America has woven one more thread of justice into the tapestry of international law.

The Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal (PPT) has found five Canadian mining companies and the Canadian government responsible for human rights violations in Latin America, including labour rights violations, environmental destruction, the denial of indigenous self-determination rights, criminalisation of dissent and targeted assassinations."The battle for international justice is absolutely the same as the battle for internal democracy." -- Judge Gianni Tognoni

Gianni Tognoni was one of eight judges in the decision, and has been secretary general of the PPT since its inception in 1979.

In an interview with IPS, he spoke about how the PPT’s claims have previously become part of the international debate.

“And in the experience of the Tribunal, that has been happening in different ways,” he said.

Out of many examples, he cited the case of child slave labour in the apparel industry, which was denounced by the tribunal, and which was “taken up in order to strengthen the controls and the monitoring by NGOs of the conditions that were there”.

The big panorama, he said, shows that “whatever could be done is being done… in order to integrate the tribunal with other forces… in order to formulate in juridically solid terms the claims”.

International processes are rarely rapid, he said, articulating that the judgement on the former Yugoslavia would “appear to be more a kind of judgement on the memory, the same is true for Rwanda”.

He contrasted that to the immediate effectiveness of economic treaties, and also brought up the well-known clash between human rights and transnational corporations, and the latter’s attitude of impunity.

“It’s not possible to have a global society which is progressively responding only to the economic criteria and the economic indicator,” he summed up.

Formally, Canada is expected to uphold the same rights abroad as at home, in accordance with the Maastricht Principle under which public powers are supposed to monitor non-state actors.

“But they simply fail to do that,” Tognoni said.

The 86-page ruling reports that 75 per cent of mining companies worldwide are based in Canada, and that Canadian companies with estimated investments of over 50 billion dollars in Latin America’s mining sector represent 50-70 per cent of mining activities in that region.

“And the verdict in Canada is clearly showing Canada outside is favouring the violation of fundamental human rights,” Tognoni said.

The PPT on the session on Canadian mining delivered the guilty verdict in Montreal on Dec. 10, 2014 – Human Rights Day – in an ongoing investigation until 2016.

So far, it has made recommendations to the Canadian government, the mining companies in question, as well as international agencies and bodies including 22 divisions of the U.N. Human Rights Council.

Access to justice is a long-term effort

The PPT’s efforts are long-term ones.

“It is clear that it is important to organize the movement of opposition in order to give a strong also juridical support to the political and social arguments so that it would be clear that the battle for international justice is absolutely the same as the battle for internal democracy. Because the two things are more and more linked.  There are no more countries which are independent from the international scene,” Tognoni said.

PPT sessions “serve to add to that body of work to demonstrate that there is a crying need for instruments that will provide access to justice”, co-organiser of the PPT session on Canadian Mining in Latin America, Daniel Cayley-Daoust, told IPS.

“The Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal is not an enforcement kind of initiative, where it does not having legal standing in a concrete way,” he said, explaining that it serves to support for affected communities and to document abuses committed, “in the sense of broadening that debate… to increase the pressure and to add that as kind of further proof to what the abuses are, that are permitted.”

A priority of the PPT is to add “more voice and credibility to something that has been largely ignored by the people who kind of have the power to make the changes”, said Cayley-Daoust.

In 2011, the U.N. Human Rights Council established a Working Group on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises.

Cayley-Daoust expressed concern that the U.N. has come under corporate influence over the last three to four decades, specifically because of its closer relations with corporations.

Rolando Gómez, spokesperson for the U.N. Human Rights Council, told IPS corporations are not immunised.

“There’s not one human rights issue within any setting – a corporation, a city, a country, a community – that would escape the attention of the council,” he said.

“We have seen positive trends of corporations, large and small, taking those issues to heart,” he said.

As for the challenge of political effects – “I think what we’ve been seeing is states are recognising more and more that we have to depoliticise the discussions,” he told IPS.

He emphasised that “the Human Rights Council is not merely about the resolutions adopted, but it’s about the follow-up, the action, it’s about the fact that there’s a setting here in Geneva where issues which often don’t get heard are heard.”

“The extent to which NGOs are active here is unique,” he told IPS, mentioning the participation of human rights victims and civil society, in delivering statements, sitting in on negotiations, and informing discussion going on in the formal setting.

As for whether talk translates into action… that depends on the issue as well as the willingness of states and decision-makers on the ground, said Gómez.

“Justice takes a long time,” he said.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

“Do Not Throw Garbage or Rocks in the Lake”, Lagunas de Portobello National Park in Chiapas, Mexico. Environmental rights are covered by the OP-ICESCR. Credit: Mauricio Ramos/IPS

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, Jul 17 2013 (IPS)

Civil society organisations are pressing the Mexican government to ratify the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, in force since May 2013.

The instrument, approved by the U.N. General Assembly in December 2008, is regarded as a key tool for fulfilling “third-generation” rights, such as access to healthcare, employment, water and a healthy environment.

“We have been calling for the protocol to be signed since it was negotiated,” Areli Sandoval, coordinator of DECA Equipo Pueblo (Social Watch Mexico), told IPS. “We are concerned to see the work of three years wasted; it is not a good sign. The government has not given a date for signing. They have behaved as if it is not important,” the activist said.

Starting in 2009, a group of civil society organisations worked with the government of conservative president Felipe Calderón (2006-2012) on signature of the convention, carrying out a number of consultations with the aim of clarifying the commitments that it would entail.

The information was ready in 2012. But according to Sandoval, Enrique Peña Nieto, elected president in July that year, urged the government not to take on any more international responsibilities until he took office on Dec. 1.

But more than seven months have gone by without any new developments, and activists are worried.

The Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (OP-ICESCR) has been signed by 42 states and ratified by 10 of them, including Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, El Salvador and Uruguay, in Latin America.

The OP-ICESCR went into force in May after it was ratified by Uruguay in February, as a minimum of 10 ratifications were needed.

A Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) monitors implementation of the ICESCR. States party to the Covenant must report periodically to the committee.

The optional protocol created a mechanism for individuals or groups to lodge complaints with the CESCR over violations of economic, social and cultural rights. It also established an inquiry mechanism, for the CESCR to investigate, report on and make recommendations on violations of the ICESCR by states party.

“The idea is to strengthen the justiciability (capability of being decided in a court) of these rights that have been long denied and neglected,” Agnieszka Raczynska, executive secretary of the Red Todos los Derechos para Todas y Todos (All Rights for All Network), which groups 73 Mexican human rights groups, told IPS.

In March, 33 civil society organisations presented a joint report ahead of the second cycle of the Universal Periodic Review of Mexico’s human rights record by the U.N. Human Rights Council. In it they give an account of economic, social, cultural and environmental rights in this country.

Structural and legislative deficiencies within the Mexican state mean that when economic, social, cultural and environmental rights violations occur, access to justice and reparations are limited, the report says.

These violations also affect the right to prior, free and informed consent of the people and communities involved in the implementation of mega-projects that generate forced displacement, deeper poverty and environmental damage and deny people’s cultural rights, it adds.

According to the latest figures from the National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy (CONEVAL), from 2010, 52 million of Mexico’s 118 million people were living below the poverty line.

The NGOs forming part of the Mexican Campaign for the Ratification of the OP-ICESCR see it as vital in the fight against poverty, as it creates accountability with regard to the country’s social policies.

“This protocol goes against economic interests and multinational corporations. If Mexico has accepted jurisdiction of other human rights mechanisms, there is no logical reason why it should not accept this one,” said Sandoval.

Mexico’s combined fifth and sixth periodic report on compliance with the ICESCR was due in 2012, and has not yet been presented.

The CESCR will hold its 51st session Nov. 4-29, 2013 in Geneva, Switzerland, but the case of Mexico is not on the agenda.

“There is a lack of guarantees for individual rights. Efforts are needed to reduce poverty and fulfil the rights to employment, healthcare and education,” said Raczynska.

The NGOs have collected over 19,000 signatures on a petition which they have handed over to the Mexican government, calling for ratification of the protocol. But activists say ratification is unlikely to occur this year.

The Peña Nieto administration is preparing a National Human Rights Programme for 2012-2018, which must be in line with directives on human rights included in the 2011 constitutional reform.

Although the constitution and several laws recognise the right to a protected environment, environmental policy is often not effective or sustainable because of technical flaws, or because it is not in harmony with other sectors and social policies, and due to the total impunity surrounding environmental offences, which also affect several human rights, says the petition delivered by the NGOs.

Given the doubts as to whether the Mexican state is going to present its official report on economic, social, cultural and environmental rights, civil society organisations are deciding whether to present a shadow report.