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The Transnational Mining Justice Movement: Reflecting on Two Decades of Law Reform Activism in the Americas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 November 2020

CHARIS KAMPHUIS
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Abstract

This article tracks the activism of the mining justice social movement since the late 1990s. As a starting point, this movement is conceptualized as a transnational political project that seeks to transform the terms of corporate resource extraction pursuant to the political and legal arrangements of neo-liberal economic globalization. In this context, the author reflects on the movement’s most significant human rights-oriented law reform projects in the Americas: Indigenous peoples’ right-to-consultation legislation in several Latin American countries and a series of non-judicial grievance mechanisms in Canada in response to the right to remedy norm in international law. Drawing on existing research, the author concludes that in both cases the state has responded with law and policy reforms that fall far short of achieving advocates’ objectives. The author argues that these shortcomings are due in part to the persistence of three liberal/neo-liberal ideologies in the reforms in question: formalism, voluntarism, and privatism. To better understand and explain these findings, the author turns to three critical theories of human rights legal activism: pragmatism, left critique/critical legal liberalism, and counter-hegemony. Examining the work of a range of scholars writing under the banner of each theory, the author identifies key debates and insights that may be instructive as the mining justice movement, and related social and environmental justice movements, continue to aspire towards a law reform agenda capable of addressing pressing global environmental and social justice issues.

Résumé

Résumé

Cet article retrace l’activisme du mouvement social qui poursuit la justice minière depuis la fin des années 1990. Comme point de départ, l’auteure conceptualise ce mouvement comme un projet politique transnational qui cherche à transformer les paramètres selon lesquels les entreprises exploitent les ressources minières conformément aux dispositions politiques et juridiques de la mondialisation économique néolibérale. Suit une réflexion sur les projets de réforme du droit les plus importants du mouvement dans les Amériques: la législation sur le droit des autochtones à la consultation dans plusieurs pays d’Amérique latine, et une série de mécanismes non-judiciaires de règlement des griefs au Canada en guise de réponse à la norme internationale qui prévoit le droit à un recours. S’inspirant d’études antérieures, l’auteure conclut que dans les deux cas, l’État a répondu par des réformes législatives et politiques qui sont loins d’atteindre les objectifs des militants. Elle soutient que ces lacunes sont en partie attribuables à la persistance de trois idéologies libérales/néolibérales au sein des réformes en question: le formalisme, le volontarisme et le privatisme. Pour mieux comprendre et expliquer ces résultats, l’auteure invoque trois théories critiques d’activisme juridique des droits de la personne: le pragmatisme, la critique de gauche/le libéralisme juridique critique, et la contre-hégémonie. Passant en revue le travail d’un éventail de chercheurs écrivant sous la bannière de chaque théorie, l’article identifie les débats et les idées clés qui peuvent être instructifs alors que le mouvement pour la justice minière et les mouvements de justice sociale et environnementale connexes continuent d’aspirer à un programme de réforme du droit capable de répondre aux problèmes mondiaux urgents de la justice environnementale et sociale.

Keywords

Corporate social responsibilitycritical legal theoryeconomic globalizationIndigenous peoples’ legal rightsinternational human rights lawmineral resource extractiontransnational mining justice movementtransnational social justice movementsDroits des peuples autochtonesdroit international des droits de la personneextraction de ressources minièresmondialisation économiquemouvement transnational pour la justice minièremouvements transnationaux de justice socialeresponsabilité sociale des entreprisesthéorie juridique critique
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Articles
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Canadian Yearbook of International Law/Annuaire canadien de droit international , Volume 57 , November 2020 , pp. 286 - 352
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© The Canadian Yearbook of International Law/Annuaire canadien de droit international 2020

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References

1 See e.g. United Nations (UN) Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), “Statement at the End of Visit to Canada by the United Nations Working Group on Business and Human Rights” (1 June 2017), online: OHCHR <www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=21680&LangID=E>.

2 Mining Association of Canada (MAC), “Facts and Figures of the Canadian Mining Industry: F&F 2016” (2016) at 81, online: MAC <http://mining.ca/sites/default/files/documents/Facts-and-Figures-2016.pdf>.

3 In identifying the prominence of these projects in terms of the attention and resources they have received from advocates within the movement, I do not assume that there was or is a consensus within the movement about these proposed reforms. I do my best to capture this nuance throughout this article.

4 The community-based lawyering tradition calls for critical reflection on one’s social location and epistemological assumptions in relation to the communities one seeks to support. Shin Imai, “A Counter-Pedagogy for Social Justice: Core Skills for Community-Based Lawyering” (2002) 9:1 Clinical L Rev 195. In 2011, I co-founded the Justice and Corporate Accountability Project, a Canadian organization that provides legal support to resource-affected communities and their allies in a framework of community self-determination, community-based lawyering, and corporate and state accountability.

5 For some examples of my public and collaborative statements on these issues, see Charis Kamphuis, Shin Imai & Juan Carlos Ruiz Molleda, “Comunidad de San Andrés de Negritos vs Minera Yanacocha: ¿Como despojar a comunidad campesina de su territorio para favorecer a la megaminería?” (31 May 2019), online: Instituto de Defensa Legal <https://idl.org.pe/comunidad-de-san-andres-de-negritos-vs-minera-yanacocha-como-despojar-a-comunidad-campesina-de-su-territorio-para-favorecer-a-la-megamineria/>; Charis Kamphuis, “Why Does Justin Trudeau Succumb to Corporate Pressure?” (5 May 2019), online: The Conversation <https://theconversation.com/why-does-justin-trudeau-succumb-to-corporate-pressure-116134>; Shin Imai & Charis Kamphuis, “Canadian Government Promises Stronger Monitoring of Canadian Companies Operating Abroad” (January 2018), online: Due Process of Law Foundation <https://dplfblog.com/2018/01/30/canadian-government-promises-stronger-monitoring-of-canadian-companies-operating-abroad/>; Penelope Simons, Shin Imai & Charis Kamphuis, “Independent Accountability Needed for Canadian Mining Companies Abroad,” Hill Times (15 March 2017), online: <www.hilltimes.com/2017/03/15/independent-accountability-needed-canadian-mining-companies-abroad/98982>.

6 Fábio De Castro, Pitou Van Dijck & Barbara Hogenboom, “The Extraction and Conservation of Natural Resources in South America: Recent Trends and Challenges” (2014) at 6–7, online: Centre for Latin American Research and Documentation <http://www.cedla.uva.nl/50_publications/pdf/cuadernos/cuad27.pdf>; UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, Foreign Direct Investment in Latin America and the Caribbean, 2016, UN Doc LC/G.2680-P (2016) at 107, online: <https://repositorio.cepal.org/bitstream/handle/11362/40214/6/S1600662_en.pdf>.

7 Simons, Penelope & Macklin, Audrey, The Governance Gap: Extractive Industries, Human Rights, and the Home State Advantage (New York: Routledge, 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 OAS, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Criminalization of the Work of Human Rights Defenders, OR OEA/Ser.L/II.Doc.49/15 (2015) at paras 48–50; Global Witness, “On Dangerous Ground: The Killing and Criminalization of Land and Environmental Defenders Worldwide” (20 June 2016) at 5, online: Global Witness <www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/environmental-activists/dangerous-ground/>.

9 Social movement scholars and participants alike are well aware that movements often encompass a diversity of positions with respect to the normative goals of the movement and the appropriate, necessary or effective tactics. As such, the general statements offered in this article provide a contextual description of the movement based on my research and observations, without purporting to definitively define its ideals and without assuming a consensus.

10 In Peru, this legislation is general and, in theory, captures all areas of state decision-making, but other Latin American countries with right-to-consultation legislation have made it sector specific, applying only to particular forms of resource extraction or infrastructure development. See Roger Merino & Carlos Quispe, “Consulta previa y participación ciudadana en proyectos extractivos. Los límites de la gobernanza ambiental,” Escuela de Gestión Pública de la Universidad del Pacífico Policy Brief No 5 (2018), online: <www.up.edu.pe/egp/Documentos/Policy-Brief-05.pdf>.

11 See discussion later in this article for definitions of liberalism and neo-liberalism.

12 Imai, supra note 4; Deena R Hurwitz, “Lawyering for Justice and the Inevitability of International Human Rights Clinics” (2003) 28:2 Yale J Intl L 505; Caroline Bettinger-López et al, “Redefining Human Rights Lawyering through the Lens of Critical Theory: Lessons for Pedagogy and Practice” (2011) 18:3 Geo J Poverty L & Pol’y 337; Gerald López, “Living and Lawyering Rebelliously” (2005) 73:5 Fordham L Rev 2041.

13 Sarat, Austin & Scheingold, Stuart, eds, Cause Lawyering: Political Commitments and Professional Responsibilities (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998)Google Scholar.

14 Sarat, Austin & Scheingold, Stuart, “What Cause Lawyers Do for, and to, Social Movements: An Introduction” in Sarat, Austin & Scheingold, Stuart, eds, Cause Lawyers and Social Movements (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006)Google Scholar 1 at 2 [Sarat & Scheingold, “Cause Lawyers”; Sarat & Scheingold, Cause Lawyers].

15 Charles Tilly, “Social Movements and National Politics” in Charles Bright & Susan Harding, eds, Statemaking and Social Movements (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992) 297 at 306, cited in Sarat & Scheingold, “Cause Lawyers,” supra note 14 at 2.

16 Tilly, supra note 15.

17 Sarat & Scheingold, “Cause Lawyers,” supra note 14 at 2.

18 Ibid at 8.

19 Ibid at 8, citing Tilly, supra note 15.

20 Sarat & Scheingold draw on Michael McCann’s chapter “Law and Social Movements” in Austin Sarat, ed, The Blackwell Companion to Law and Society (London: Blackwell Publishing, 2004) 506. Other works of interest by McCann on this topic are Michael McCann, “Law and Social Movements: Contemporary Perspectives” (2006) 2 Ann Rev L & Soc Sci 17; McCann, Michael, ed, Law and Social Movements (New York: Routledge, 2016)Google Scholar.

21 For one description of some of these tactics, see Kamphuis, Charis, “Home-State Grievance Mechanisms: Law Reform Strategies in the Canadian Resource Justice Movement” in Feichtner, Isabel & Krajewski, Markus, eds, Human Rights in the Extractive Industries: Transparency, Participation, Resistance (Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2019) 455 CrossRefGoogle Scholar [Kamphuis, “Home-State Grievance Mechanisms”].

22 For some European examples, see law reform work of the European Network for Corporate Accountability. For some examples of responses from international bodies, see Charis Kamphuis & Leah Gardner, “Effectiveness Framework for Home-State Non-Judicial Grievance Mechanisms” in Amissi M Manirabona & Yenny Vega Cardenas, eds, Extractive Industries and Human Rights in an Era of Global Justice: New Ways of Resolving and Preventing Conflicts (Toronto: LexisNexis Canada, 2019) 75.

23 For a study of the legal activism of the labour movement with a focus on trade agreements, see Ruth Buchanan & Rusby Chaparro, “International Institutions and Transnational Advocacy: The Case of the North American Agreement on Labour Cooperation” (2008) 13:1 UCLA J Intl L & Foreign Aff 129.

24 Sarat & Scheingold, “Cause Lawyers,” supra note 14 at 9.

25 Ibid at 3 [emphasis in original].

26 Ibid at 10.

27 For an interesting study of a movement’s strategic choices with respect to adopting a particular legal frame in the domestic context to advance a cause (protecting a river), see Laura Spitz & Eduardo Moises Penalver, “Nature’s Personhood and Property’s Virtues” (13 March 2020), University of New Mexico School of Law Research Paper No 2020-1.

28 Sarat & Scheingold, “Cause Lawyers,” supra note 14 at 10 (where Sarat and Scheingold adopt a typology that suggests social movements are fundamentally involved in “rights claiming”).

29 In one study of transnational human rights activism that included interviews with advocates, the authors observed that the human rights lawyers involved were not only ambivalent but also pragmatic about the legal strategies they adopted. Buchanan & Chaparro, supra note 23.

30 See Merino & Quispe, supra note 10; Charis Kamphuis, “Contesting Indigenous-Industry Agreements in Latin America” in Dwight Newman & Ibironke Odumosu-Ayanu, eds, Indigenous-Industry Agreements, Natural Resources, and the Law (New York: Routledge, forthcoming) [Kamphuis, “Contesting Indigenous-Industry Agreements”].

31 See Catherine Coumans, “Mining and Access to Justice: From Sanction and Remedy to Weak Non-Judicial Grievance Mechanisms” (2012) 45:3 UBC L Rev 651; Kamphuis, “Home-State Grievance Mechanisms,” supra note 21.

32 For one early study of transnational private law litigation as a mechanism for addressing human rights violations, see Scott, Craig M & Wai, Robert, “Transnational Governance of Corporate Conduct through the Migration of Human Rights Norms: The Potential Contribution of Transnational ‘Private’ Litigation” in Joerges, Christian, Sand, Inger-Johanne & Teubner, Gunther, eds, Transnational Governance and Constitutionalism (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2004) 287 Google Scholar.

33 Jayalaxshmi Mistry, “Defending the Environment Now More Lethal Than Soldiering in Some War Zones — and Indigenous Peoples Are Suffering Most” (5 August 2019), online: The Conversation <https://theconversation.com/defending-the-environment-now-more-lethal-than-soldiering-in-some-war-zones-and-indigenous-peoples-are-suffering-most-118098>.

34 See Mayagna (Sumo) Awas Tingni Cmty (Nicaragua) (2001), Merits, Reparations, and Costs, Judgment, Inter-Am Ct HR (Ser C) No 79 at para 148 [Awas Tingni]. Awas Tingni was the first Indigenous rights claim brought to the Inter-American Commission. The petition was filed in 1995, and the court issued a final judgment in 2001. See Charis Kamphuis, “Litigating Indigenous Dispossession in the Global Economy: Law’s Promises and Pitfalls” (2017) 14:1 Brazilian J Intl L 165 [Kamphuis, “Litigating Indigenous Dispossession”] for references to many of the Indigenous rights cases in the inter-American system since Awas Tingni. For a summary of Latin American jurisprudence on the Indigenous right to consultation, see Galvis, María & Ramirez, Ángela, Digesto de jurisprudencia latinoamericana sobre los derechos de los pueblos indígenas a la participación, la consulta previa y la propiedad comunitaria (Washington, DC: Fundación del Debido Proceso, 2013)Google Scholar.

35 Kamphuis, “Litigating Indigenous Dispossession,” supra note 34; Kamphuis, “Contesting Indigenous-Industry Agreements,” supra note 30.

36 Kamphuis, “Contesting Indigenous-Industry Agreements,” supra note 30.

37 There is some indication that this decades-long absence of Indigenous communities as litigants in their own rights cases may be changing, as there are several cases in this category that have been waiting years for a hearing before Peru’s Constitutional Court, as well as a handful of such cases that have been successful at first or second instance in recent years: Interview by the author with Juan Carlos Ruiz Molleda, Director of the Indigenous Peoples and Constitutional Litigation Area of the Institute for Legal Defense, Lima, Peru (18 September 2020).

38 Kamphuis, “Litigating Indigenous Dispossession,” supra note 34 at 178.

39 For one attempt at a more fulsome explanation, see ibid.

40 Patricia Urteaga-Crovetto, “Implementation of the Right to Prior Consultation in the Andean Countries: A Comparative Perspective” (2018) 50:1 J Leg Pluralism & Unofficial L 7 at 8.

41 See e.g. ibid; Merino & Quispe, supra note 10; César Rodriguez-Garavito, “Etnicidad.gov: Global Governance, Indigenous Peoples and the Right to Prior Consultation in Social Minefields” (2011) 18:1 Indiana J Global Leg Studies 263. For a summary of some of this research, see Kamphuis, “Contesting Indigenous-Industry Agreements,” supra note 30.

42 Deborah Delgado-Pugley, “Contesting the Limits of Consultation in the Amazon Region: On Indigenous Peoples’ Demands for Free Prior and Informed Consent in Bolivia and Peru” (2013) 43 RGD 151; Claire Wright, “Indigenous Mobilisation and the Law of Consultation in Peru: A Boomerang Pattern?” (2014) 5:4 Intl Indigenous Policy J 1 at 8; Almut Schilling-Vacaflor & Riccarda Flemmer, “Conflict Transformation through Prior Consultation? Lessons from Peru” (2015) 47:4 J Latin American Studies 811.

43 For a framework setting out the required standard, see James Anaya, “Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: Extractive Industries and Indigenous Peoples,” UNGAOR, 24th Sess, UN Doc A/HRC/24/41 (2013).

44 Shin Imai, Leah Gardner & Sarah Weinberger, “The ‘Canada Brand’: Violence and Canadian Mining Companies in Latin America” (2017) Osgoode Legal Studies Research Paper No 17/2017, online: SSRN <https://ssrn.com/abstract=2886584>.

45 For examples of this observation as it relates to the implementation of consultation legislation, see literature cited in notes 41–42 above. For examples of this observation as it relates to Indigenous rights litigation, see Kamphuis, “Litigating Indigenous Dispossession,” supra note 34.

46 Kamphuis, “Contesting Indigenous-Industry Agreements,” supra note 30.

47 As stated earlier, there has been disagreement among movement participants regarding the strategic value of home-state grievance mechanisms as a priority area for law reform. More recently, some Canadian organizations have begun to focus on proposals for corporate due diligence legislation. So far, relatively less attention has been given to the development of concrete law reform proposals to improve access to civil law remedies in Canadian courts. At present, only a few civil cases have overcome the formidable procedural obstacles to admissibility, no claim has been decided on the merits and one claim has settled.

48 Sara L Seck, “Canadian Mining Internationally and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights” (2011) 49 Can YB Intl L 51; Kamphuis & Gardner, supra note 22.

49 See e.g. House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Mining in Developing Countries: Corporate Social Responsibility, 38th Parl, 1st Sess, 14th Rep (2005), online: <www.ourcommons.ca/DocumentViewer/en/38-1/FAAE/report-14>; Working Group on Mining and Human Rights in Latin America, The Impact of Canadian Mining in Latin America and Canada’s Responsibility: Executive Summary of the Report Submitted to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (2013), online: <www.dplf.org/sites/default/files/report_canadian_mining_executive_summary.pdf>; Imai, Gardner & Weinberger, supra note 44.

50 See e.g. Above Ground, MiningWatch Canada & OECD Watch, “‘Canada Is Back’ but Still Far Behind: An Assessment of Canada’s National Contact Point for the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises” (2016), online: <https://miningwatch.ca/sites/default/files/canada-is-back-report-web_0.pdf>; Canadian Network for Corporate Accountability and Justice & Corporate Accountability Project, “Human Rights, Indigenous Rights and Canada’s Extraterritorial Obligations,” Thematic Hearing for 153rd Period of Sessions, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (28 October 2014), online: <http://cnca-rcrce.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/canada_mining_cidh_oct_28_2014_final.pdf>. For a comprehensive survey of these strategies, see Kamphuis, “Home-State Grievance Mechanisms,” supra note 21.

51 See e.g. UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Concluding Observations on the Sixth Periodic Report of Canada, UN Doc E/C.12/CAN/CO/6 (2016) at para 15, online: <http://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/treatybodyexternal/Download.aspx?symbolno=E%2fC.12%2fCAN%2fCO%2f6&Lang=en>. For a comprehensive summary of these statements, see Kamphuis & Gardner, supra note 22 at 89–91.

52 See literature cited at note 50 above.

53 In the civil society proposal, the ombudsperson could resort to the courts and seek judicial review of the Canadian government’s refusal to respond to a recommendation.

54 Justice and Corporate Accountability Project, “Lobbying by Mining Industry on the Proposed Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise (CORE)” (24 July 2019), online: JCAP <https://justice-project.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/2.-Report-on-Lobbying-by-Mining-Industry-july-24fin.pdf>. This was not the first time that industry marshaled an intensive lobby campaign to counter a law reform proposal supported by Canadian civil society. See Coumans, supra note 31.

55 Order Setting out the Mandate of the Special Adviser to the Minister for International Trade, to Be Known as the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise, PC 2019-0299 (2019), online: Government of Canada <https://orders-in-council.canada.ca/attachment.php?attach=37587&lang=en> [OIC 2019-0299]. An Order-in-Council (OIC) is a unilateral decision of the federal executive, or Cabinet, that is made known when it is published online and in the Canada Gazette, but is not discussed or voted on in Parliament.

56 For analysis of this provision, see Charis Kamphuis, “Canadian Mining Companies and Domestic Law Reform: A Critical Legal Account” (2012) 13:9 German LJ 1456 [Kamphuis, “Canadian Mining Companies”].

57 OIC 2019-0299, supra note 55, was updated in September 2019. Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise, Schedule, PC 2019-1323 (2019), online: Government of Canada <https://orders-in-council.canada.ca/attachment.php?attach=38652&lang=en>.

58 Susan Lott, “Corporate Retaliation against Consumers: The Status of Strategic Lawsuits against Public Participation (SLAPPs) in Canada” (September 2004), online: Public Interest Advocacy Centre <www.piac.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/slapps.pdf>.

59 Sheldrick, Byron, Blocking Public Participation: The Use of Strategic Litigation to Silence Political Expression (Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2014)Google Scholar.

60 Protection of Public Participation Act, SO 2015, c 23; Protection of Public Participation Act, SBC 2019, c 3.

61 Canadian Network on Corporate Accountability, News Release, “Government of Canada Turns Back on Communities Harmed by Canadian Mining Overseas, Loses Trust of Canadian Civil Society” (11 July 2019), online: CNCA <http://cnca-rcrce.ca/recent-works/news-release-government-of-canada-turns-back-on-communities-harmed-by-canadian-mining-overseas-loses-trust-of-canadian-civil-society/>.

62 See e.g. research cited in note 54 above. For a very insightful study of the impact of corporate capture on domestic Canadian environmental policy, see Jason MacLean, “Regulatory Capture and the Role of Academics in Public Policymaking: Lessons from Canada’s Environmental Regulatory Review Process” (2019) 52:2 UBC L Rev 479.

63 For a full summary of the ombudsperson as proposed by civil society, see Kamphuis, “Home-State Grievance Mechanism,” supra note 21.

64 This refers to the Canadian Human Rights Commission, and provincial commissions, which are connected to quasi-judicial human rights tribunals.

65 Kamphuis & Gardner, supra note 22.

66 In the civil society proposal, the ombudsperson’s enforcement power was limited to the power to compel disclosure of documents.

67 See Shamir, Ronen, “Corporate Social Responsibility: A Case of Hegemony and Counter-Hegemony” in de Sousa Santos, Boaventura & Rodríguez-Garavito, César A, eds, Law and Globalization from Below (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005) 92 CrossRefGoogle Scholar [Shamir, “Corporate Social Responsibility”; de Sousa Santos & Rodríguez-Garavito, Law and Globalization from Below], cited below in the discussion of voluntary regulation as a response to social movement demands for corporate accountability.

68 Extractive Sector Transparency Measures Act, SC 2014, c 39, s 376.

69 For a more extensive discussion of this point in relation to earlier law reform proposals, see Kamphuis, “Canadian Mining Companies,” supra note 56.

70 For some examples of case studies depicting these forms of support, see Jen Moore & Gillian Colgrove, “Corruption, Murder and Canadian Mining in Mexico: The Case of Blackfire Exploration and the Canadian Embassy” (2013), online: MiningWatch Canada <https://miningwatch.ca/sites/default/files/blackfire_embassy_reportweb.pdf>; Jen Moore, “Unearthing Canadian Complicity: Excellon Resources, the Canadian Embassy, and the Violation of Land and Labour Rights in Durango, Mexico” (2015), online: MiningWatch Canada <https://miningwatch.ca/sites/default/files/excellon_report_2015-02-23.pdf>; Above Ground, “Anti-Corruption and Export Development Canada: Recommendations for an Effective Policy and Improved Regulatory Oversight” (2018), online: <https://aboveground.ngo/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Anti-corruption-and-EDC-Above-Ground-report.pdf>.

71 Canada, “About Canada Trade Missions,” online: <www.international.gc.ca/trade-commerce/trade_events-evenements_commerciaux/trade_missions-missions_commerciales/about-a_propos.aspx?lang=eng&_ga=2.223401883.1471054383.1581707825-1103413297.1566577377>.

72 For one example, see Gabe Friedman, “‘Lobbied to Death’: Liberals Face Backlash over Corporate Responsibility Ombudsman,” Financial Post (8 April 2019), online: <https://financialpost.com/commodities/mining/lobbied-to-death-liberals-face-backlash-over-corporate-responsibility-ombudsman>.

73 David Kennedy, “The International Human Rights Movement: Part of the Problem?” (2001) 3 Eur HRL Rev 245, reprinted in Kennedy, David, The Dark Sides of Virtue (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar at 3ff [Kennedy, “International Human Rights Movement” cited to The Dark Sides of Virtue]; Sarat & Scheingold, “Cause Lawyers,” supra note 14; David Kennedy, “The International Human Rights Regime: Still Part of the Problem?” in Rob Dickinson et al, eds, Examining Critical Perspectives on Human Rights (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013) 19 [Kennedy, “International Human Rights Regime”]; Lucie E White & Jeremy Perelman, eds, Stones of Hope: How African Activists Reclaim Human Rights to Challenge Global Poverty (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011) [White & Perelman, Stones of Hope].

74 Sarat & Scheingold, “Cause Lawyers,” supra note 14.

75 Kennedy, “International Human Rights Movement,” supra note 73.

76 Ibid at 4.

77 Ibid.

78 Kennedy, “International Human Rights Regime,” supra note 73 at 19.

79 Ibid at 22 (Kennedy understands idolatry and pragmatism in a dialectic relationship, in that each one is the antidote for the other).

80 Ibid at 22–23.

81 Ibid at 27.

82 Ibid at 23.

83 Ibid at 32–33.

84 White & Perelman, Stones of Hope, supra note 73.

85 Lucie E White & Jeremy Perelman, “Introduction” in White & Perelman, Stones of Hope, supra note 73, 1 at 2–3 [White & Perelman, “Introduction”].

86 Lucie E White & Jeremy Perelman, “Stones of Hope: Experience and Theory in African Economic and Social Rights Activism” in White & Perelman, Stones of Hope, supra note 73, 149 at 149 [White & Perelman, “Experience and Theory”].

87 For a similar conclusion in another context, see Buchanan & Chaparro, supra note 23.

88 White & Perelman, “Experience and Theory,” supra note 86 at 149–50.

89 Ibid at 150.

90 Ibid at 151.

91 Ibid at 152.

92 Ibid.

93 Ibid at 167–71. The second of these two objectives is described at length in another chapter of the same book. See Peter Houtzager & Lucie E White, “The Long Arc of Pragmatic Economic and Social Rights Advocacy” in White & Perelman, Stones of Hope, supra note 73, 172 at 172–94.

94 White & Perelman, “Experience and Theory,” supra note 86 at 155.

95 Kennedy, “International Human Rights Movement,” supra note 73; Sarat & Scheingold, “Cause Lawyers,” supra note 14.

96 Kennedy, “International Human Rights Regime,” supra note 73.

97 White & Perelman, “Experience and Theory,” supra note 86.

98 Ibid; Kennedy, “International Human Rights Regime,” supra note 73.

99 Sarat & Scheingold, “Cause Lawyers,” supra note 14; Kennedy, “International Human Rights Movement,” supra note 73.

100 Sarat & Scheingold, “Cause Lawyers,” supra note 14.

101 Kennedy, “International Human Rights Regime,” supra note 73.

102 White & Perelman, “Experience and Theory,” supra note 86.

103 For this idea, they cite Judith Butler, “Deconstruction and the Possibility of Justice: Comments on Bernasconi, Cornell, Miller, Weber” (1990) 11:5–6 Cardozo L Rev 1716, cited in Sarat & Scheingold, “Cause Lawyers,” supra note 14 at 9.

104 Sarat & Scheingold, “Cause Lawyers,” supra note 14 at 10.

105 Kennedy, “International Human Rights Movement,” supra note 73.

106 Kennedy, “International Human Rights Regime,” supra note 73.

107 Brown, Wendy & Halley, Janet, “Introduction” in Brown, Wendy & Halley, Janet, eds, Left Legalism / Left Critique (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002) 1 CrossRefGoogle Scholar [Brown & Halley, “Introduction”; Brown & Halley, Left Legalism].

108 Ibid at 5.

109 Ibid at 6.

110 Ibid.

111 Ibid at 26.

112 Ibid at 28.

113 Ibid at 1.

114 Ibid at 10.

115 Ibid at 7.

116 Ibid at 4.

117 Ibid at 2, 5.

118 Ibid at 27.

119 Ibid at 16.

120 Ibid at 17–18. Brown and Halley name some of these unintended consequences in the following passage: “The preemptive conversion of political questions into legal questions can displace open-ended discursive contestation: adversarial and yes/no structures can quash exploration; expert and specialized languages can preclude democratic participation; a pretense that deontological grounds can and must always be found masks the historical embeddedness of many political questions; the covertness of norms and political power within legal spaces repeatedly divests political questions of their most crucial concerns.” Ibid at 19.

121 Ibid at 6.

122 Ibid at 9. See also Fish, Stanley, The Trouble with Principle (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001)Google Scholar.

123 Brown & Halley, “Introduction,” supra note 107 at 11, 20.

124 Ibid at 20.

125 Ibid at 13 (Brown and Halley describe law as operating the “background rules” for culture, at 11–13).

126 Ibid at 19.

127 Ibid at 20.

128 Ibid.

129 Ibid at 13.

130 White and Perelman draw on a range of contemporary theorists to articulate their critical liberal legalism lens: Jeremy Waldron, Nancy Fraser, Thomas Pogge, Amartya K Sen, Alan Hunt, and Michael W McCann. They also identify four other theoretical approaches to analyzing the activists in their study: distributive legal analysis, legal experimentalism, subaltern cosmopolitanism, and historical institutionalism. See White & Perelman, “Introduction,” supra note 85 at 5.

131 Ibid.

132 White & Perelman, “Experience and Theory,” supra note 86 at 155.

133 Ibid at 156.

134 Ibid.

135 Ibid.

136 Ibid at 156–57; see also at 164–67.

137 Ibid at 165. For a representative summary of the sceptics’ critique, White and Perelman cite Kennedy’s book The Dark Sides of Virtue, supra note 73. Chapter 1 of Kennedy’s book reprints his 2001 essay “International Human Rights Movement,” supra note 73, discussed at length in the previous subpart on pragmatism.

138 White & Perelman, “Experience and Theory,” supra note 86 at 166, summarizing these policy questions as: “where to allocate, when to expand, and how best to renew limited resources in ways that enable all people to live decent lives.”

139 Ibid.

140 Brown & Halley, “Introduction,” supra note 107 at 24. The example they provide is of gay rights litigation where, for the sake of obtaining equality rights protection, litigants argued that “homosexuality” was an immutable characteristic.

141 Ibid.

142 For example, White and Perelman’s focus on redistribution, substantive equality, and engagement with private actors responds to several of the critiques advanced by Kennedy, including that the international human rights movement views the problem and the solution too narrowly by delegitimizing remedies in the domain of private law, insulating the economy from critique, privileging form over substance, and ignoring context. See Kennedy, “International Human Rights Movement,” supra note 73 at 10–13.

143 Ibid at 8.

144 White and Perelman also refer to this as a commitment to “voice” that they argue resonates with the work of Roberto Unger on democratic experimentalism, as well as Charles Sabel, Joshua Cohen, Chantal Mouffe, and Ernesto Laclau’s work on radical democratic renewal. See White and Perelman, “Experience and Theory,” supra note 86 at 166, nn 35–37. See respectively Unger, Roberto, Democracy Realized: The Progressive Alternative (New York: Verso, 1998)Google Scholar; Charles Sabel & Joshua Cohen, “Directly Deliberative Polyarchy” (1997) 3:4 Eur LJ 313; Anna Marie Smith, Laclau & Mouffe: The Radical Democratic Imaginary (New York: Routledge, 1998).

145 There is speculation that Canada is beginning to pay some political costs internationally. Some have connected Canada’s foreign policy on mining to its failed bid for a seat at the UN Security Council in 2020. Bianca Mugyenyi, “Why Black and Brown Countries May Have Rejected Canada’s Security Council Bid,” Ottawa Citizen (18 June 2020), online: <https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/mugyenyi-why-black-and-brown-countries-may-have-rejected-canadas-security-council-bid>.

146 For a poignant depiction of this problem, see the short documentary film: Parana — el río (Peru: Quisca Productions, 2016), online: <https://vimeo.com/195532048>.

147 While the mining justice movement’s law reform proposals have triggered relatively narrow debate among lawmakers at certain intervals, the reference here to democratic debate refers to Brown and Halley’s concept described above of radical democratic debate over society’s governing norms. Brown and Halley, Left Legalism, supra note 107.

148 See Alan Hunt, “Rights and Social Movements: Counter-Hegemonic Strategies” (1990) 17:3 JL & Soc’y 309 at 310; Claire A Cutler, “Gramsci, Law and the Culture of Global Capitalism” (2005) 8 Critical Rev Intl Social & Political Philosophy 527 at 530. The authors here refer to Gramsci, Antonio, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, edited and translated by Hoare, Quintin and Smith, Geoffrey Nowell (New York: International Publishers, 1971)Google Scholar.

149 Cutler, supra note 148 at 527. Certain elements of Cutler’s discussion are outside of the scope of this review. Specifically, Cutler argues extensively that Gramsci’s conceptions of historical bloc and hegemony can be adapted to the international arena and are useful for understanding the role of international law in the global political economy. Ibid at 533–38.

150 Ibid at 538.

151 Ibid at 529. Cutler builds on Gramsci’s praxis conception of law, where law operates both coercively and consensually within the state to secure the economic interests of the dominant class. In its consensual iteration, law educates the subaltern in the ideology of conformity, turning coercion into freedom. This is also described as the double face or dialectic of law.

152 Ibid at 538.

153 See ibid at 531–32. Here Cutler relies on interpretations of Karl Marx developed in Anderson, Perry, Lineages of the Absolutist State (Brooklyn, NY: New Left Books, 1974)Google Scholar; Evgeny Pashukanis, Law and Marxism: A General Theory (Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1978); Isaac D Balbus, “Commodity Form and Legal Form: An Essay on the ‘Relative Autonomy’ of the Law” (1977) 11:3 Law & Soc’y Rev 571.

154 Cutler, supra note 148 at 532.

155 Ibid.

156 Ibid.

157 Ibid. Cutler cites Gramsci’s definition of historical bloc: “[T]he complex, contradictory and discordant ensemble of … the social relations of production” (at 534); Cutler also cites Robert Cox’s definition: “[T]he overall configuration of productive, institutional and ideological forces of a given historical period” (at 534).

158 Ibid at 535 (Cutler describes the legal elements of post-modernity and late-capitalism on three levels: materially, institutionally, and ideologically. In this review, I limit my references to her material description).

159 Ibid (Cutler describes legal pluralism as multiple legal orders that operate sub-nationally, nationally, regionally, and transnationally, linking local and domestic economies and societies through the creation and expansion of legal regimes governing myriad areas of social life).

160 Ibid.

161 Ibid at 537, 539.

162 Ibid at 539. In reference to soft laws, Cutler adopts Gramsci’s term “transformismo,” defined as the “process by which opposition and resistance to hegemony is absorbed into the dominant ideology” resulting in the elimination of opposition. Ibid at 536.

163 Ibid at 538.

164 Ibid at 537–38.

165 Ibid at 539.

166 Ibid at 529–30, 539.

167 Ibid at 528–29, 540 (Cutler takes the idea of the negation of law through law from Gramsci’s conception of the ethical, integral, or perfect state, at 529).

168 Boaventura de Sousa Santos & César A Rodríguez-Garavito, “Law, Politics, and the Subaltern in Counter-Hegemonic Globalization” in de Sousa Santos & Rodríguez-Garavito, Law and Globalization from Below, supra note 67, 1 [de Sousa Santos & Rodríguez-Garavito, “Law, Politics, and the Subaltern”].

169 Ibid at 5 (de Sousa Santos and Rodríguez-Garavito associate hegemony theorists with the work of Marx, Bourdieu, and Foucault and, in particular, those works that reveal the contribution of law to arrangements of domination, at 6).

170 See ibid at 9–12 (de Sousa Santos and Rodríguez-Garavito offer an extended critique of the contributions and limitations of hegemony theorists).

171 Ibid at 12.

172 Ibid at 5, 13 (de Sousa Santos and Rodríguez-Garavito present this approach as a critique of two dominant areas of research in law and globalization studies: the global governance literature and the post-law and development literature).

173 See ibid at 13. For their description of cosmopolitanism, de Sousa Santos and Rodríguez-Garavito rely on Staz, Debra, “Equality of What among Whom? Thoughts on Cosmopolitanism, Statism, and Nationalism” in Shapiro, Ian & Brilmayer, Lea, eds, Global Justice: Nomos XLI (New York: New York University Press, 1999) 67 Google Scholar; Walter Mignolo, “The Many Faces of Cosmo-Polis: Border Thinking and Critical Cosmopolitanism” in Carol Breckeridge et al, eds, Cosmopolitanism (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002) 157; Anthony K Appiah, “Citizens of the World” in Matthew Gibney, ed, Globalizing Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003) 189.

174 De Sousa Santos & Rodríguez-Garavito, “Law, Politics, and the Subaltern,” supra note 168 at 14.

175 Ibid at 9.

176 Ibid at 4.

177 Ibid at 15–16.

178 Ibid at 4, 15.

179 Ibid at 16.

180 Ibid at 11.

181 Ibid at 17–18.

182 Shamir, “Corporate Social Responsibility,” supra note 67.

183 Ibid at 92–93. Shamir also refers to counter-hegemony in this context as “the use of law as means for bringing about social emancipation from corporate tyranny.” Ibid at 95.

184 Ibid at 96–99 (in describing these practices, Shamir omits to acknowledge that they also take place in the “host states” where multinational corporations [MNCs] conduct their operations).

185 Ibid at 94.

186 Ibid at 101.

187 Ibid at 101, 107.

188 Ibid at 95.

189 Ibid at 109. In addition to corporate funded non-governmental organizations (NGOs), Shamir includes in this category those organizations that are heavily funded by corporate philanthropic foundations as well as those that are established or indirectly governed by governments. He distinguishes these from those groups with “institutional and ideological independence” and autonomy (at 109–10).

190 Ibid at 95.

191 For this proposition, Shamir cites Prakash S Sethi, “Corporate Codes of Conduct and the Success of Gloablization” (2002) 16:1 Ethics & Intl Affairs 89; Morton Winston, “NGO Strategies for Promoting Corporate Social Responsibility” (2002) 16:1 Ethics & Intl Affairs 71. While Shamir’s chapter dates to 2005, many of the trends he describes have only intensified since its publication. His subsequent work tracks some of these trends. See e.g. Ronen Shamir, “Socially Responsible Private Regulation: World-Culture or World-Capitalism?” (2011) 45:2 Law & Soc’y Rev 313; Ronen Shamir, “The Age of Responsibilization: On Market-Embedded Morality” (2008) 37:1 Economy & Society 1; Shamir, Ronen & Weiss, Dana, “Corporations, Indicators, and Human Rights: A Material Semiotics View” in Davis, Kevin et al, eds, Governance by Indicators: Global Power through Data (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012) 110 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

192 Shamir, “Corporate Social Responsibility,” supra note 67 at 95.

193 Ibid at 105, 109.

194 Ibid at 110. Shamir draws on Gouldner’s concept of the “new class” as a heuristic device to describe some of his concerns in this regard. See Gouldner, Alvin V, The Future of the Intellectuals and the Rise of the New Class (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

195 Shamir, “Corporate Social Responsibility,” supra note 67 at 113.

196 Ibid at 110–13.

197 Ibid at 110–15.

198 Ibid at 115.

199 Shamir cites the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) in South Africa, a movement to demand access to affordable HIV/AIDS treatment, as an example of the potential counter-hegemonic impact that a transnational coalition might have. Interestingly, the TAC is also the focus of a chapter in White & Perelman’s edited book. William Forbath, “Cultural Transformation, Deep Institutional Reform, and ESR Practice: South Africa’s Treatment Action Campaign” in White & Perelman, Stones of Hope, supra note 73, 54. Further research could examine similarities and differences in the ways in which these two different theoretical frameworks (counter-hegemony and critical legal liberalism) approached and interpreted this case study.

200 Shamir, “Corporate Social Responsibility,” supra note 67 at 113.

201 Cutler, supra note 148 at 536. Note that Cutler also sees soft laws and corporate social responsibility (CSR) as part of the dialectic of the international commodity legal form under conditions of late capitalism. As such, she sees these legal innovations both as part of the hegemonic development of international law and also as a specific response to resistance.

202 Shamir, “Corporate Social Responsibility,” supra note 67 at 95.

203 For research documenting the corporate lobby against the ombudsperson proposal, see note 54 above. For an in-depth study of the history of corporate capture of environmental law and policy by oil and gas companies, see MacLean, supra note 62.

204 “Greta Thunberg Will Sail across the Atlantic on a Zero-Emissions Yacht for the UN Climate Summit,” CNN (18 August 2019), online: <www.cnn.com/2019/07/29/europe/greta-thunberg-sailboat-scli-intl/index.html>.

205 Brent Patterson, “Thunberg’s Visit to Mexico Could Draw Attention to the Risks Faced by Human Rights Defenders,” PBI (29 July 2019), online: <https://pbicanada.org/2019/07/29/thunbergs-visit-to-mexico-may-draw-attention-to-the-risks-faced-by-human-rights-defenders/>; Front Line Defenders, “Front Line Defenders Global Analysis 2018” (2018), online: Front Line Defenders <www.frontlinedefenders.org/sites/default/files/global_analysis_2018.pdf>; Global Witness, “Enemies of the State?: How Governments and Business Silence Land and Environmental Defenders” (July 2019), online: Global Witness <www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/environmental-activists/enemies-state/?utm_source=hootsuite&utm_medium=twitter%3e;%20Front%20Line%20Defenders,%20“Front%20Line%20Defenders>.

206 UN Human Rights Council, Recognizing the Contribution of Environmental Human Rights Defenders to the Enjoyment of Human Rights, Environmental Protection and Sustainable Development, UN Doc A/HRC/40/L.22/Rev.1 (20 March 2019), online: <https://undocs.org/A/HRC/40/L.22/Rev.1>; OHCHR, “UN Human Rights Experts Applaud Children Fighting Climate Change” (22 March 2019), online: OHCHR <www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=24393&LangID=E>.

207 Louis J Kotze, “Editorial: Coloniality, Neoliberalism and the Anthropocene” (2019) 10:1 J Human Rights & Environment 1, online: Elgar Online <www.elgaronline.com/view/journals/jhre/10-1/jhre.2019.01.00.xml>.