Dr Lee McConnell is a Senior Lecturer in International Law at the University of Bristol Law School and the primary investigator on the Arts and Humanity Research Council Research Networking Scheme AH/W0072X/1 project, Extractive Industry and Foreign Security Network. Dr Jane Rooney is a Co-investigator and Associate Professor in International Law at Durham Law School. Our Project Partner is the NGO Rights and Accountability in Development.
The Extractive Industry and Foreign Security Network is an international, multi-stakeholder, interdisciplinary research network that investigates adverse human rights impacts arising from the interactions between UK-based extractive industries and the security forces in foreign States.
This blog series distils discussions that took place during the three workshops and two public engagement events from 2023-2024 funded by the AHRC. This series is published alongside a commissioned contribution in a forthcoming Debates and Dialogue Section of the Social and Legal Studies Journal.
In workshop 1 we explored three contemporary case studies of human rights impacts by security forces in the extractive sector: the Tonkilili mine in Sierra Leone, North Mara mine in Tanzania, and Shell in the Niger Delta, Nigeria. These case studies were chosen because of the parent company’s presence in the UK and UK litigation regarding human rights abuses committed by security forces in those extractive sites. We found the narratives produced by the law and regulatory frameworks invisibilised the lived experiences of local communities affected on the ground and mischaracterised and misidentified the ‘ecology of actors’[1] involved with human rights abuses. Testimonies from local community members, NGOs, and lawyers, and insights from social, political, geographical, historical and economic contexts elucidated the shortcomings in the narratives told by UK litigation. This blog series includes an interview with Solomon Moses Sogbandi, Amnesty International Sierra Leone, and Anthony Hayward and Stephen Bilko, Leigh Day Solicitors, to provide insights into the reality on the ground and fitting the factual situations into existing legal frameworks, respectively.
In Workshop 2, we mapped out the multifarious legal frameworks that aimed to regulate security presence in the extractive sector. From Tanzanian criminal law (Tito Elia Magoti, Tanzania Criminal Lawyer) and UK tort and commercial law (Chris Riley, Reader at Durham Law School and Irene Marie Esser, Professor of Corporate Law and Governance, University of Glasgow) to the International Code for Private Security Providers (Dr Sorcha MacLeod, Associate Professor, University of Copenhagen), laws touching upon the regulation of security forces in the extractive industry will be examined in this series. Progressive provisions are noted, and shortcomings in various frameworks highlighted.
In workshops 1 and 2, we heard of numerous forms of resistance undertaken by local communities. Having been ignored, marginalised and silenced, these populations sought their own ways of penetrating that exclusive space of decision-making that had a significant bearing on their quality of life and of which they felt formed no part. At the Tonkolili mine in Sierra Leone, roadblocks and strikes provoked a ‘security response’ which led to widespread violence. In the North Mara mine, ‘theft’ of debris from the extraction of gold provokes a ‘security response’. In Nigeria, vandalism and oil theft are said to require a ‘security response’. The narrative presented in the case studies and by the law condoned or did not question security measures as an appropriate response to local community action such as strikes, blocking infrastructure, and ‘theft’ of oil and waste rock.
Workshop 3 considered this local community action as a demand for democratic participation in the decision-making process. We explored the forms of ‘contentious’ agency engaged by and underpinning acts of resistance. ‘Contentious agency’ has been defined by Professor Markus Kröger as challenging ‘the orthodox, accepted trajectory of development promoted by more powerful actors that extend resource exploitation operations’. Four themes were considered: a) definitions of violence and security (Henry Jones, Associate Professor in International Law, Durham Law School); b) forms and strategies of resistance in host and home States; c) interrogating liberal-democratic solutions such as free, prior, and informed consent of affected communities; and d) exploring specific action to be undertaken by and in the UK.
The Marikana Massacre was explored in depth in workshop 3 in problematising violence, security and resistance. This massacre was as an example of unjust bloodshed in the extractive context. On 16 August 2012, the South African Police Service opened fire on striking miners at the then British-owned Lonmin platinum mine in Rustenburg, South Africa. They killed thirty-four miners and injured at least another seventy-eight. The miners were striking for better wages. Lonmin accepted no responsibility. The security forces killed in cold blood at the behest of the company. Professor Lucy Graham, University of Johannesburg, screened video footage of the conversations between the security guards and strikers which had been filmed that day, and we saw how the strikers referred to the guards as ‘brother’, stating that they had no issue with them, just their employer. Dr Anashri Pillay, Associate Professor at Durham Law School, translated one of the Zulu protest songs which spoke to the theme of the neo-colonial era forcing the Black population to turn on each other: ‘What have we done? Our sin is that we are black’. Bill Dixon, Professor of Criminology, University of Nottingham, writes on the Marikana Massacre in this blog series.
Free, prior and informed consent of affected communities is put forward as a means of alleviating tension between the local community and the mining industry. In this blog series, Isabel Inguanzo, Associate Professor, University of Salamanca, investigates the effectiveness of this approach drawing upon her fieldwork in Southeast Asia.
Professor Anita Ramasastry, University of Washington, and Professor Markus Kröger, University of Finland, delivered keynotes for the public engagement events in December 2024. Professor Ramasastry, Former Chair of The United Nations Working Group on Business and Human Rights, explores the current race in both the Global North and South to secure much needed critical minerals, and the attendant human rights abuses and impacts on local communities arising from the new resource rush. She considers new regulation and reporting initiatives and the extent to which they can serve as accountability mechanisms for human rights abuses as states prioritise resources over rights. You can watch her lecture here. Based on extensive empirical work in Brazil, Professor Kröger’s talk reflects on how social movements, NGOs, and other forms of active citizenship contesting the illegalities or socio-environmental injustices of over-extractive natural resource operations have influenced the economic outcomes in different contexts. You can watch his lecture here.
The blog series aims to provide an insight into the rich dialogues we have undertaken during the last two years. We are grateful to those who contributed to the workshops and blog contributors. If you want to learn more about the network, please contact lee.mcconnell@bristol.ac.uk and jane.rooney@durham.ac.uk.
[1] Professor Sigismund Wilson, Department of History and Political Science at Rogers State University, Claremore, Oklahoma, USA, Workshop 1.