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Marred with intricate socio-environmental problems, human rights abuses and disproportionate impacts on marginalized communities, including indigenous peoples, extractive industries (EI)-led development has often disappointed. This chapter asks whether 'better' governance is the panacea for EI to spearhead development in the Global South and if so, how. We argue that the 'Modes of Governance' approach offers the most useful perspective. Nested within heterodox political economy, this approach emphasizes the need to take into account the structural relations of power and authority, as well as the plurality of actors that have a significant influence on the investment environment for the sector and the norms which regulate it. The chapter first provides an overview of EI development in the Global South. It then details how, over the past three decades, different analysts have identified 'governance' as a key variable while significantly disagreeing on how to define this intricate concept. Building on the Modes of Governance approach, we then turn to the analysis of key contemporary debates over EI. We conclude that neo-liberalism and the externally driven nature of EI and governance reforms in the Global South have profoundly constrained the capacity of the state to make economic and socio-environmental decisions around EI.

During the 2021 mass protests in Colombia, and while international calls for the Colombian government to respect human rights were intensifying, Canada’s position remained somewhat ambiguous. Part of Canada’s ambiguity can be explained by a simplistic characterization of Colombia as a “weak state.” This article assesses Canada’s bilateral relationship by historizing the development of Colombia’s governance in the key overlapping sectors of security, human rights, and natural resources. From extensive fieldwork, we distinguish two competing rationalities based on the articulation of the notions of “conflict” and “dissent” with the notion of the “rule of law.” We believe that Canada’s bilateral relation with Colombia in the last decades has overlooked the contradictions that exist between democratizing rationalities and antipolitical rationalities. As a result, Canada’s foreign policy has been based on an overly simplistic conception of the relationship between development, security, and the rule of law.

La relativisation de la souveraineté est à la fois au cœur de la critique du pluralisme juridique et le résultat concret de la globalisation néolibérale. Cet article propose ainsi la notion d’écosystème normatif comme milieu pour la structuration des communautés politiques. Il énonce trois hypothèses concernant la configuration de l’écosystème normatif extractif canadien : 1) des enjeux constitutionnels y sont traités par le biais de relations contractuelles entre entreprises et communautés autochtones; 2) la responsabilité sociale des entreprises y fait office de régime de véridiction; et 3) l’impératif d’efficacité y prend préséance sur les visées téléologiques en présence. Ces hypothèses configurent une gouvernementalité moralisante peu amène aux communautés politiques. Cet article propose donc de renouveler la charge critique du pluralisme juridique en insistant sur l’hétéronomie de la norme comme condition de possibilité de la liberté politique. The relativization of sovereignty is at the core of the critique of legal pluralism and a concrete result of neoliberal globalization. This article proposes the notion of normative ecosystem as an environment for political communities. It formulates three hypotheses pertaining to the configuration of the Canadian extractive normative ecosystem: 1) constitutional issues are dealt with through contractual relationships between companies and Indigenous communities; 2) corporate social responsibility acts as a regime of truth; and 3) the imperative of effectiveness takes precedence over stated teleological goals. These hypotheses configure a moralizing governmentality which is not conducive to self-determination. This article therefore proposes to renew the critical potential of legal pluralism by insisting on the exteriority of the norm as a condition of possibility for political freedom.

This article analyses the institutionalisation of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the context of resource extraction in Colombia and the use of human rights language in this normative project. We argue that “rights-based” CSR constructs a new “public–private reason of state” that has disciplinary implications for Colombian society and might contribute to destabilising existing regimes of rights enforcement. Rather than reconciling human rights imperatives and market forces, we conclude, CSR institutionalisation might best be conceptualised as the result of powerful groups strategically harnessing the forces of globalisation.

‘International accompaniers’ use their physical presence as a form of peaceful intervention to deter political violence against local human rights defenders. Threatened members of Guatemala’s civil society have relied on accompaniment as part of their security strategy since the early 1980s. Approximately one thousand volunteers from a dozen countries have accompanied in Guatemala. International accompaniment has been a key component of the effort to prosecute former military general and president Efraín Ríos Montt and other perpetrators of mass human rights violations in Guatemala. Victim witnesses and their legal counsel have included accompaniment as part of their protection strategy since 2000. Important questions have nonetheless been raised with respect to accompaniment’s effectiveness as a tool for witness protection and the possibility that it reinforces power inequalities. This article builds on Gada Mahrouse’s critique of accompaniment and draws on Michel Foucault’s understanding of reflexivity and power. The authors use insights from two case studies to support the argument that accompaniment’s usefulness as a tool for witness protection depends on its ability to accommodate the witnesses’ position within webs of interconnected power dynamics and the multiple ways in which they conceive of security. It also depends on how intelligible these different power dynamics are to accompaniers. This argument is used to highlight how accompaniment in Guatemala is relevant for other situations where the prosecution of human rights atrocities is long term and depends on witness testimony.

Un accord conclut en 2010 entre la Colombie et la Canada établit une obligation, inédite en droit international, d’étudier les impacts d’un traité de libre-échange sur les droits humains. La méthodologie utilisée par le Canada pour en faire rapport est cependant restrictive au point d’en miner radicalement la crédibilité et la pertinence. Elle exclut en particulier l’étude des impacts de compagnies extractives canadiennes en Colombie; l’étude de politiques néolibérales de promotion de l’investissement mises en cause par différents acteurs civils et institutionnels; et l’étude des réponses données par le gouvernement colombien aux enjeux particuliers de droits humains soulevés par le conflit armé au regard de l’exploitation des ressources naturelles. Cette note de recherche analyse ces limites et propose d’y remédier en élargissant la portée des rapports produits par le Canada et en appliquant à leur élaboration des critères d’indépendance et de statut. Ce second critère demande de revoir l’articulation de ces rapports avec les mécanismes démocratiques de prise de décision relatifs aux obligations et à la responsabilité du Canada en matière d’exploitation des ressources naturelles dans le monde, lesquels souffrent du rôle prépondérant accordé actuellement aux mécanismes de Responsabilité sociale des entreprise.

Since the early 1990s, the Canadian mining industry has been increasingly defined by the signing of Impact and Benefit Agreements (IBAs) between mining companies and Aboriginal peoples. While these agreements are intended to complement the legal system, they also serve to establish the legitimacy of mining projects and to encourage the harmonious integration of these projects into their social and environmental contexts. Beyond their practical implications, what are the effects of such agreements on the ability of Aboriginal communities to access the institutional space where the authorization of mining projects and the conditions of their implementation are decided? Can we view IBAs as a preliminary step towards the operationalization of the principle of Free, Prior and Informed Consent? This paper aims to explore the potential of IBAs as a sustainable solution to the legitimacy issues that result from the implementation of the formal regulatory framework governing mining activities in this jurisdiction. We highlight what constraints and opportunities the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement (JBNQA) engenders for local communities and draw attention to the ways in which the negotiation of the Raglan IBA and the environmental evaluation processes act upon each other. We find that certain structural problems - and problems of legitimacy – related to mining in Northern Quebec cannot be solved by the sole signature of an IBA, which suggests the need for caution when considering such agreements as a panacea. The Raglan case demonstrates that IBAs, like other modes of regulation relying on the direct interface between companies and communities, would benefit from a stricter framework and more explicit ties with official regulation channels.

During the 1990s, the Peruvian mining sector was the object of a far-reaching process of liberalization which included the privatization of state enterprises and a series of measures aimed to attract foreign direct investment. Since 1992, the sector has received US$12 billion in national and foreign investment. In 2007, it represented 20 per cent of total foreign direct investment and generated 25 per cent of public revenue collected from corporate income taxes by the Peruvian government; 130,000 people are estimated to work in the mining sector. Since the 1990s, with the growth rate at 7.8 per cent as compared with the 4.1 per cent growth rate of the GDP, it is one of the fastest growing sectors. A large part of this activity is undertaken by foreign mining companies. Peru is at present the world’s second largest producer of silver, the third largest of zinc, the fourth largest of lead, the fifth largest of copper, and the sixth of gold. In 2007, mining activities represented 62 per cent of the total of Peruvian exports and 10 per cent of GDP (PERCAN and MEM, 2009, p. 1). Canadian mining companies are key actors in the Peruvian mining sector, particularly with regard to the exploration and production of gold (DFAIT, 2010).