Mining in Indigenous Regions

Abstract

The neoliberal globalization of trade and investment allows capital and products to flow with almost no restrictions between countries and markets. At the same time, global demand for natural resources soared. The high turnover in the raw material sector makes it profitable to invest in remote and inaccessible regions. Often, the people affected by business intervention in these areas are indigenous communities. The international human rights framework recognizes a series of specific rights for indigenous people. Indigenous people are entitled to set their own priorities for the development of their communities. If measures coming from outside affect their specific values and way of life, indigenous peoples must be consulted in order to obtain their free, prior, and informed consent. Thus, the appropriate way of trying to reconcile the often diverging interests of business and indigenous peoples would be to engage in such a consultation process, allowing indigenous peoples to know the risks and opportunities of a project from the very beginning. Recent case studies on conflicts concerning raw material projects in indigenous territories show that due consultation processes with indigenous peoples did not take place or were not in compliance with international human rights standards. A Human Rights Impact Assessment carried out in 2013 suggests that this may also be the case for the Tampakan Copper–Gold Project of Swiss-based Glencore Xstrata, in Mindanao, Philippines (INEF, 2013). The initial consultation processes with the local indigenous people may not have met international standards. Today the context of the mining project is so violent that the conditions for a correctly carried out consultation process are not given, according to the above-mentioned assessment. It follows that without an adequate de-escalation strategy and an implementation of due consultation processes with the local indigenous people, the violence threatens to grow.