Human RIghts IA and Extractive Industries - Session I, Presentation 5

How doing HRIA has changed how I look at SIA

How I became an 'expert' in HR - sociologist/SIA practitioner, 15 years experience in mining assessment, steep learning curve,...

Don't have a methodologically rigorous approach to HRIA (an important gap)

How do you define whether a company is respecting HR.

Used IFC Standards (that company had committed to, to measure respect and due diligence)

Used DIHR's HR Compliance Assessment Toolkit

Changed from HRIA to a Human Rights Assessment - because of inclusivity/baseline

 

Classification of findings:

• Violation
• Infringement
• Failure of respect
• ...
• Enhancement

Areas intifed through HR

• Consultation
• Environment
• Labour
• Security
• Land acquisition
• Economic and social investment
• Access to remedy (Respect of HR in judicial system)
• Cross cutting issues - conflict, indigenous (collective) rights, gender, weakness of state protection of HR

Found on the web www.oncommonground.ca

 

 

3 differences between HRIA and SIA

• Importance of understanding country context in HRIA
• Scope of responsibility - often clients don't want to take responsibility for indirect social impacts, scope under HR is broader
• Rights based approach - requires participation and integration of rights holders

 

Challenges

• Attribution
• Authority - community vs expert evidence/experiences
• ...

 

Final Thoughts

• Looks beyond compensatory practices - social investments don't make up for negative impacts
• Like SIA multiple stages and levels
• Legitimate scope of the review beyond SIA regulations
• due diligence
• Shifts of the paradigm
• Realpolitik
• Cumulative effects