Human Rights and Mining Corporations: Canadian New Perspectives Regarding Corporation Social Responsibility

Abstract

Foreign victims of exactions committed by Canadian multinational companies have long been confronted to a legal vacuum in liability actions against those companies. Although Canada was considered as a judicial paradise for mining corporations, this impunity era seems now over. Two recent court decisions of the Ontario Superior Court of justice (Choc v. Hudbay Minerals Inc.) and the Supreme Court of Canada (Chevron Corp. v. Yaiguaje) have changed Canadian law’s perspective. This article provides a complete overview of these decisions and puts them in perspective with the unavoidable movement of corporate accountability. The meeting of law and corporate social responsibility brings real basis for corporations’ responsibility reinforcement. Indeed, it allows courts to held parent corporations liable for their subsidiary’s human rights violations. Despite the remaining interrogations and judicial obstacles, this new risk of liability and its consequences may convince corporations to adopt proactive attitudes towards social responsibility.