Communiqué: In the following statement issued on September 9th, the Regional Indigenous Council of the department of Caldas and the José Alvear Restrepo Lawyers' Collective condemn the murder of José Reinel Restrepo, parish priest of the municipality of Marmato, who was found dead on September 2...

Argentine Federal Prosecutor Gustavo Gómez describes what he calls the cycle of corruption (círculo cerrado): companies are allowed to operate without adequate regard for the environment and subsequently use their enormous profits to ensure ever-increasing impunity. Mr. Gómez firmly believes that...

Argentine Federal Prosecutor Gustavo Gómez outlines five lines of investigation related to this mining operation, from environmental issues to concerns about the Argentinean State's lost revenues.

A number of Argentinean universities have refused to accept donations from mining companies and Argentine Federal Prosecutor Gustavo Gómez calls on Canadian institutions to carefully look at company practices when considering offers of this type of funding.

In Argentina, the movement to protect the environment has moved from the fringes and the university classroom, to communities concerned for their well-being, to the court room. Mr. Gómez discusses the challenges and his hopes for his country’s future. He also provides an interesting insight into the...

The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court was adopted in 1998 and can be viewed as a precedent, according to Argentine Federal Prosecutor Gustavo Gómez, for the establishment of an international environmental crimes court. He believes such a body is essential to ending the impunity that...

Antonio Gustavo Gómez is the General Prosecutor in Argentina’s Federal Court of Appeal for the province of Tucumán. He specializes in the investigation of environmental crimes. In early 2011, Mr. Gómez visited Canada. MiningWatch Canada hosted him while he was in Ottawa. We have produced five videos...

For a relatively small project, Castle Resources' proposed Elmtree gold mine is raising a lot of concerns amongst the citizens of north-eastern New Brunswick.

In the struggle to protect their water supply against Canadian-led gold mining, Salvadorans have had to fight for their lives and for their democracy. An excellent article by Robin Broad and John Cavanagh originally published in The Nation.

Fifty-two international civil society organizations have asked Honduran authorities to stop criminalizing environmental defenders and to ensure them personal freedom, due process, and the right to continue their defence of human rights.

In its July 2010 report, a Federal Review Panel identified a number of significant adverse effects that were likely to occur if Taseko Mines were permitted to build its proposed Prosperity gold-copper mine. These were significant adverse effects, for which the panel saw no reasonable means of...

Ontario is the only jurisdiction in Canada that does not apply environmental assessment (EA) legislation to mine development. Several jurisdictions also apply their EA process to mineral exploration. Clearly Ontario is out of step with the rest of Canada and Ontarians' expectations regarding...

Baker Lake, Nunavut, is the geographic centre of Canada, but it’s rarely the centre of attention for most Canadians. And yet what’s going on here is nothing less than a test of democracy in Canada’s newest territory. A huge complex of uranium mines is being proposed for the tundra west of Baker Lake...

(Updated on February 11th, 2012)

Over the past couple of years, Private Member’s Bill C-300 had MiningWatch focused on efforts to bring about legislative change through the Canadian parliament in order to hold our extractive industry to greater account for its operations abroad. But while our...

Unfortunately, in moving from naming and framing problems in 2008, to providing guidelines through which to address these problems in 2011, Ruggie has retreated from making strong recommendations that he himself had identified as feasible in key areas.

On March 1, 2011, MiningWatch Canada and our Papua New Guinea partners from Akali Tange Association and the Porgera Landowners Association filed a “Request for Review” with the Canadian National Contact Point for the OECD Guidelines on Multinational Enterprises. The complaint alleges that Canadian...