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The emergence of transnational natural

commons strategies in Canada and Latin America

Daviken Studnicki-Gizbert & Fabiola Bazo

To cite this article: Daviken Studnicki-Gizbert & Fabiola Bazo (2013) The emergence of
transnational natural commons strategies in Canada and Latin America, Canadian Journal
of Development Studies / Revue canadienne d'tudes du dveloppement, 34:1, 71-78, DOI:
10.1080/02255189.2013.767193

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Canadian Journal of Development Studies
Revue canadienne detudes du developpement, 2013
Vol. 34, No. 1, 71 78, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02255189.2013.767193

The emergence of transnational natural commons strategies in Canada

and Latin America
Daviken Studnicki-Gizberta and Fabiola Bazob
a
McGill University, Montreal, Canada; bSimon Fraser University, Burnaby, Canada

ABSTRACT This introduction examines the socio-ecological conicts and global activism
generated by the activities of large-scale extractive industries (mining and oil) in Canada
and Latin America through the lenses of ve authors: Karyn Keenan; Liisa North and Laura
Young; Luis A ngel Saavedra; and Henry Veltmeyer. It argues that although the exploitation
of natural resources has been at the heart of the Latin American political economy since the
colonial period, this latest chapter of resistance is characterised by the emergence of new
rights discourses and transnational strategies which not only reshape the future of Canadian
development, but also present a challenge to the current resource regime and its historical
dominance in Latin America.
RE SUME Cet article examine les conits socio-ecologiques et lactivisme global generes par les
activites des industries extractives (minie`res et petrolie`res) en Amerique latine et au Canada
pendant la dernie`re decennie a` travers les perspectives de cinq auteurs : Karyn Keenan,
Liisa North et Laura Young, Luis A ngel Saavedra et Henry Veltmeyer. Cet article fait
ressortir que meme si lexploitation des ressources naturelles a toujours fait partie de
leconomie politique dAmerique latine depuis la periode coloniale, cette dernie`re etape de
resistance est caracterisee par lemergence de nouveaux discours sur les droits et les
strategies transnationales qui non seulement remettent en question le futur du
developpement canadien, mais qui sopposent au regime actuel et sa dominance historique
en Amerique latine.
Keywords: natural commons; socio-ecological movements; extractive industries; corporate
social responsibility; Latin America

The article serves as an introduction to the other four included in this CJDS policy forum on emer-
ging transnational responses to global extractive industries.1 The research and commentary come
at a critical time never before has Canada been so politically and economically involved in
Latin America, especially within the eld of resource extraction. The impacts of this Canadian
presence are numerous and cut both ways. This rst section of this introduction will look at
the implications of Canadian mining within Canada, while the second will explore outcomes
in Latin America. Within the Canadian context, the activities of Canadian mining companies
abroad stir up important contentious debates over the future of foreign aid, corporate social
responsibility (CSR) and in particular, the nexus between the state, corporate interests and
NGOs within Canada. After years of contentious debate, the Federal Government of Canada
has recently shifted much of its energy in the developmental sector away from traditional
forms of aid and toward forms of engagement that seek to leverage investments from the both
public and private sector in projects that simultaneously encourage economic development, ame-
liorate the environmental and social consequences of mining and secure prots within a sector that
is critically important to the Canadian economy. The recently announced Extractive Industries

Corresponding author. Email: fbazo@sfu.ca

# 2013 Canadian Association for the Study of International Development (CASID)

72 D. Studnicki-Gizbert and F. Bazo

Institute, which is a collaborative undertaking between Simon Fraser University, the University of
British Columbia and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) with a $25
million dollar grant from CIDA represents a core element in this strategy.2
These undertakings have been very controversial in Canada. The business sector and govern-
ment insist that this approach offers new possibilities in nding solutions to persistent problems
and in ensuring that CSR delivers positive results. Critics, on the other hand, argue that it is simply
another example of a far-right government directing what were traditionally public resources
toward private ends, thus ofoading the responsibility for dealing with the consequences of
mining from the sector itself and onto the Canadian state. Indeed, the contribution of North
and Veltmeyer in this issue reects the nature of that debate, as scholars with long histories of
working on development issues (sometimes in partnership with CIDA) who do not disguise
their disappointment with recent trends. Their tone is largely reective of a general sensibility
among the scholars and NGOs who have long worked in Canadian development, as to them
CIDA has become something that is unrecognisable from what it was in past decades.
Keenan and Saavedra approach this issue, each with a distinctive stake. Working from within
the sphere of politics, Keenan privileges the need for legislation that would reframe CSR as a legal
obligation instead of what we might call a soft promise. Stronger legislation would make it
possible for aggrieved parties to sue Canadian mining companies in the Canadian courts. We
see in her article the story of a barely defeated bill and the possibility that CSR might actually
prove meaningful if supported by certain forms of legislation. Saavedra also engages CSR, but
from yet a different perspective. It comes, he reminds us, not from an inherent sense of duty
on the part of corporate actors, but out of a series of confrontations between mining communities
and extractive companies. It was the fruit of a struggle in which the ability to continue working
was predicated on the promise of certain benets. The problem, in this case, becomes the weak-
ness of a state that could not or would not enforce those deals.
Saavedra reminds us that CSR is negotiated at many levels, between the state and mining
companies, between political agents in the North and on the ground in mining communities.
He also reminds us that the political and social mobilisations surrounding these issues in the
Global South are dynamic and have gained more steam in recent years as his example of
Ecuador shows. Here we see a variety of legislative initiatives aimed at addressing mining, but
we also see rural populations that are more mobilised today around these issues than at any
point in the past. It is not clear whether sumak kawsay should be read here as a negotiating pos-
ition or a utopian end, but it is clear that it has real currency within the battles taking place on the
ground in the Ecuadorian Andes.
It is equally necessary to examine the ways in which Canadian extractive activities also impact
the political landscape in Latin America. While the presence of Canadian companies can be argu-
ably viewed as a recent phenomenon, the political economy of Latin America has long been
characterised by resource extraction. Such extraction has not occurred without protest; it has
been continuously accompanied by struggles over dispossession, labour, the national patrimony
and the land. The authors in this forum thus remind us of this historical narrative as they explore
its latest chapter: the emergence of new rights discourses and transnational strategies that are
responding to the socio-environmental impacts of extractive industries particularly mining
and oil.
After the Lost Decade in the 1980s, Latin America is back in business or so we are told. The
region is currently experiencing sustained growth, attracting inows of foreign direct investment
(FDI) since 2002, circumventing global trends when FDI worldwide shrunk by 15 per cent in
2008. Beside the United States, Canada has become a leading pursuer of gold and other strategic
minerals in Latin America. During the 1991 1995 period, the number of properties owned by
Canadian companies increased dramatically. Properties in Mexico almost quintupled (52 to
 Transnational natural commons strategies in Canada and Latin America 73

244), and in Peru and Argentina the numbers also skyrocketed (from 3 to 98 in Peru and from 0 to
97 in Argentina) (Lemieux 1995). Canadian mining corporations operated some 1,500 projects
across the continent in 2007 (Mining Association of Canada 2007, 22).3
High commodity prices and government policies favouring deregulation, privatisation, free
trade and investment, especially in mining and hydrocarbons, have contributed to the investment
frenzy. Policies aimed at attracting foreign capital in extractive industries include new mining
codes, liberalised regulatory regimes and favourable institutional arrangements. The new
mining codes implemented in the 1990s lifted foreign capital restrictions and entitled individuals,
irrespective of nationality, to invest. They also provided subsidiary rights to other natural
resources such as water and generous concession timelines. Mining concessions often enjoy
legal pre-eminence over other forms of land tenure on the principle that the development of
mineral resources is in the public interest.4 Fourteen Latin American mining nations overhauled
their regulatory regimes with the help of the World Bank, advisors from the industry and devel-
opment organisations such as the Canadian International Development Agency (Chaparro Avila
2002).5 As a part of the changes in land tenure, communal lands were privatised by the Fujimori
administration in Peru in the 1990s and integrated into potential mining concession as part of their
servitude (Szablowski 2007, 46). The duration of mining concessions was also extended from
20 to 50 years.
In a recent meeting, the Confederacion Nacional de Comunidades del Peru Afectadas por la
Minera (CONACAMI) denounced the contemporary boom in transnational mining as a pillage
of our natural commons, a phrase that neatly captures the opposition between neoliberal and
communitarian natural resource regimes (CONACAMI 2011). Pillage connotes colonial and
neocolonial forms of extraction. It refers to the way dominant discourses have represented min-
erals as treasures to be disinterred or otherwise appropriated and set to external ends. The multi-
national mining corporations of today echo the Spanish conquistadores and the British and
American enclaves and monopolies from the early twentieth century. If the neoliberal reforms
of the 1990s ushered in the latest cycle of extraction, contemporary post-neoliberal states such
as Ecuador, Bolivia and Venezuela have been unable or unwilling to make a clear break from
this model (Gudynas 2012).
Henry Veltmeyers article conceptualises such changes by situating them within the new
imperialism of contemporary forms of capitalist development. In Latin America, he argues,
these changes unfolded in two successive stages: a rst wave of foreign investment expansion
primarily directed at acquiring the assets of state enterprises with minimal transfer of capital or
technology, followed by a second wave focused on direct investment in natural resources.
These changes set out a neoliberal regime of resource extraction, a revival of the liberal
regimes established across the continent in the late nineteenth century. Within this regime, the
state positions itself as the facilitating agent of transnational capitalist forms of extraction of
natural resources, supporting their sale on the global market. By doing so, however, it simul-
taneously sets itself in opposition to the communities directly affected by these operations.
Today, mining concessions comprise hundreds of millions of hectares, accounting for large
swaths of territory: over 20 per cent of Mexico and Ecuador; and 5 to18 per cent of Colombia,
Chile and Peru (The Dominion, July 5, 2007; La Jornada, August 8, 2011; El Espectador,
January 12, 2011). According to Veltmeyer, up to 70 per cent of the Mexican concessions used
to explore and extract minerals belong to Canadian rms. In Argentina, almost 30 million hectares
in 23 provinces are under foreign concessions, with another 13 million hectares still available.
Large-scale mining has generated signicant state revenue and growth in urban sectors, with
mines employing technologies that involve extensive use of land to create open pits. However,
it has also heightened environmental risks, especially deforestation and the contamination of
water, which are becoming a source of socio-environmental conicts in the rural and remote
74 D. Studnicki-Gizbert and F. Bazo

communities where these resources are found. In most instances, the areas in concessions are also
among the poorest, with limited infrastructure (water and energy supply, roads), populated by
indigenous people who traditionally use supercial land for subsistence farming.6
As a mitigating strategy, mining companies have mobilised resources in developing new
forms of governance, with the support of governments and international development agencies,
most especially the development of CSR frameworks. These initiatives rely on voluntary codes
and self-regulation. In Latin America, CSR practices have positioned the Canadian mining indus-
try as modern and sustainable, promising a new form of mining, different from the American,
British or Spanish mining of previous generations and centuries. While CSR has legitimated
transnational mining for certain audiences, it has been ineffective in addressing issues raised
by the affected communities. Karyn Keenan argues that the Government of Canadas CSR frame-
work and the federally appointed ofce of the CSR Counselor have demonstrated an inability to
carry out independent investigations of alleged corporate violations of various sets of rights
(human, labour, environmental or indigenous).
The politics of natural resources have moved to the grassroots level. Since late 1990s, an
increasing number of social and environmental conicts protests have arisen around large
private mining and oil projects across Latin America. Over 160 mining conicts have been
accounted by the Chilean Observatorio de Conictos Mineros de America Latina (OLCA), infor-
mation which is available online on the groups site.7 McGill Universitys Research Group Inves-
tigating Canadian Mining in Latin America (MICLA) has documented over 80 involving a
mining corporation registered and capitalised in Canada as listed on its website.8 These mobilis-
ations against extractive industries have focused on land and water rights, indigenous claims to
self-determination and territorial rights and, lastly, environmental damage. The majority of
these conicts concerns gold mines, a metal used mostly as a reserve a medium of exchange,
rather than an industrial input, as North and Young point out in their article.
Veltmeyer argues that environmental devastation and corruption in the management of a resource,
due to circumvention of mining legislation by local authorities, ensured the plunder of the regions
natural resources. A 2008 report by Mexicos Auditor General exposed that the fees paid for the con-
cessions to mine were well below the costs of the administrative procedures involved and not reec-
tive of the volumes of nonrenewable mineral resources extracted during the period 2005 to 2010. As
the number of social conict rises in communities directly affected by these operations, governments
and private rms have taken repressive measures to control or neutralise them.9
Luis A ngel Saavedra examines the environmental destruction wrought by Texaco now
Chevron during its 28 years of operation in Ecuador (1964 1992) and the tireless efforts to
make this company accountable in United States courts. As in the Mexican case, the opposition
to transnational oil companies in Ecuador was provoked by unfullled promises made to local
communities. According to Saavedra, only 10 per cent of oil company representatives honoured
their verbal commitments to local indigenous communities in the Ecuadorian province of Orel-
lana. This gave rise to demands by indigenous communities asking that companies write and
sign documents to guarantee the compliance of commitments. In time, organised resistance
grew against these types of extractive activities. Saavedra also examines the unexpected social
mobilisation (and subsequent criminalisation of) citizens organisations against three mining pro-
jects operated by Ecuacorriente (a Sino-Canadian company) and the Canadian companies
Iamgold and Kinross.
The rise of judicial harassment in the Ecuadorian provinces with mining projects has resulted
in over 360 social leaders taken to court, where they have been accused of crimes such as sabo-
tage, injury and robbery. In the past, these cases were brought up by companies, but since 2008,
allegations have been brought up by government ofcials in what Saavedra calls the criminali-
sation of social protest. The initiation of trials and repressive measures against individuals
 Transnational natural commons strategies in Canada and Latin America 75

opposed to extractive activities have resulted in the violation of human and ecological rights.
Using the methodology of the Ecuadorian Human Rights Ombudsman, Saavedra distinguishes
two types of criminalisation: primary and secondary. Primary criminalisation refers to the elabor-
ation of legislation and typication of inadmissible social behaviour (sabotage, terrorism, rebel-
lion, obstruction of public space, illicit association) in the penal code to deter social protests.
Secondary criminalisation is de facto and creates delinquents in the realm of public opinion.
It uses media statements and representations that contain elements of classism, racism and sexism.
According to Liisa North and Laura Young, only a handful of mining companies have been
driven out of Latin American due to malpractice. Further, in all these cases, local solidarity and
organisational capacity have formed the basis for informed and widespread opposition. Protests
leading to greater public awareness about the issues and successful political mobilisation may
have convinced some governments to alter their paths. However, it has proven difcult for
these governments to sue corporations to protect their nationals or to establish regulations that
run counter to the trade and investment treaties that favour companies.

Defense of the natural commons as emerging transnational strategy

The articles presented here add perspective on the normative frameworks and transnational strat-
egies that animate these emergent socio-ecological movements. At the normative level, these
movements combine a critique of dominant regimes of extraction with a counter-proposal that
emphasises collective forms of control over local natural goods. Saavedra argues, for example,
that the resource development programme adopted by the Correa government in Ecuador operates
under multiple assumptions of unlimited resources. It seeks primarily to maximise capital ows,
protability and material welfare. This strategy, however, exhausts the vitality of regional ecosys-
tems and the communities that live within them. Communities and civil society organisations
often point to water resources to illustrate the problem. As a long line of research clearly demon-
strates, large-scale industrial mining poses signicant threats to water systems through overdrafts,
hydrological disruption and contamination (Bebbington, Humphreys Bebbington, and Bury
2010). These local threats directly translate into threats to livelihoods. Unsurprisingly, the con-
temporary version of pillage includes not only the alienation of wealth in the form of precious
metals, but also the concomitant theft of the natural and social capital held within local landscapes
and communities, thus diminishing their resilience and long-term prospects.
The notion of natural commons challenges these resource regimes and their recurring dom-
inance in the history of the continent. Communities and movements in resistance have fore-
grounded collective claims to local resources on their territory, thus opposing a centuries-old
framework in which natural resources are the patrimony of the state. As part of the broader politics
of contemporary resource conicts, communities are now laying claim to collectively manage
watersheds, forests and land. These emergent alternatives also propose new ethical frameworks,
such as the Andean ethic of sumak kawsay or buen vivir (living well) explored by Saavedra. In
the Quechua tradition, sumak kawsay searches for equilibria within human nature and human
human relations. It understands the natural world as animate and thus deserving of consideration
and respect. This was, incidentally, the ontological foundation for the granting of rights to nature
in the new constitutions of both Ecuador and Bolivia.10
The resistance of local communities to transnational mining has scaled up in extent and inten-
sity over recent years through the proliferation of networks and organisations with coordinated
common political response.11 Some of these initiatives have resulted in the creation of national
and regional coordinating bodies (Red Mexicana de Afectadas y Afectados por la Minera
[REMA] in Mexico, Red Colombiana Frente a la Gran Minera Transnacional [RECLAME]
in Colombia); other groups have centered their efforts on gender issues and on the inclusion of
76 D. Studnicki-Gizbert and F. Bazo

indigenous groups to bring community representatives and civil society organisers together
(CONACAMI in Peru, and Red Latinoamericana de Mujeres en Resistencia a la Minera, Con-
federacion de Nacionalidades Indgenas del Ecuador [CONAIE] and Confederacion de las
Nacionalidades Indgenas de la Amazonia Ecuatoriana [CONFENAIE] in Ecuador); and
others have extended their contacts to the developed world, generating international coalitions
of resistance against large-scale extractive projects. As they expanded into the global arena
through solidarity networks, Saavedra argues that they have forced a reconsideration of the
concept of stakeholder and have exercised pressure on states of the Global North to regulate
global capital. This is conrmed in Keenans article, which notes the degree to which Canadian
civil society organisations (CSOs) have been overwhelmed with requests for solidarity to counter
the adverse impacts of operations by Canadian extractive companies in Latin America. In
response to these requests, CSOs have supplied information and analysis of the Canadian extrac-
tive sector and have engaged in campaigns to promote awareness about extractive companies
predatory practices.
In the same vein, North and Young, Keenan and Saavedra provide examples of the trans-
nationalisation of the struggle to reorganise the frameworks for contemporary resource extrac-
tion. They explore the tensions between capital rights and human rights in the context of
judicial and legislative initiatives in Canada and the United States that attempt to build new
platforms for the rights claims made by affected communities. Keenan examines the case of
the proposed private members Bill C-300 in Canada (defeated by six votes in 2010). Had it
passed into legislation, Bill C-300 would have been quite innovative, establishing a set of
binding standards for the Canadian extractive companies that receive support from the Depart-
ment of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Export Development Canada and the Canada
Pension Plan. These standards are based on the World Bank Performance Standards, the Volun-
tary Principles on Security and Human Rights and international human rights law. In cases
where companies are found in contravention of the standards established under the bill, govern-
ment agencies would have been obliged to withdraw their support and to condition future
support on demonstrated compliance.
Although the bill was defeated, it consolidated and strengthened a network of civil society
organisations and facilitated the development of international alliances. The Canadian Network
on Corporate Accountability (CNCA) led civil society efforts in support of Bill C-300 in
Canada. Its collaborative relationship with international organisations in the Global South were
critical for the process leading to the bill and the policy debates that preceded it. Close to 40
Latin American human rights organisations wrote to Canadian Members of Parliament and
others testied on the proposed legislation. Testimony was also given by recognised foreign aca-
demics and government ofcials from countries where Canadian extractive companies have
established operations. In 2011, a new private bill initiative, Bill C-323, was introduced to parlia-
ment in a letter by Peter Julian. This would allow non-citizens to sue Canadians and Canadian
corporations for gross violations of basic human, environmental or labour rights when they are
committed outside Canada (Julian 2011).
North and Young also review a number of cases brought to Canadian courts and the inter-
American human rights systems against Canadian mining companies, with a focus on the plain-
tiffs, their Canadian supporters and the judicial process. Seven lawsuits have been lodged in
Canadian courts against Canadian mining companies by communities seeking compensation
from socio-environmental harm done to their communities and way of life, but with limited
success. The cases brought to Canadian courts against companies operating in Latin America
involve cyanide spills to aquatic wildlife in Guyana (1998), assault and harassment by a com-
panys security personnel in Ecuador (2009), allegations of wrongful death by security personnel
of a Mayan leader in Guatemala (2010) and corruption in Mexico (2010). The companies
 Transnational natural commons strategies in Canada and Latin America 77

involved are traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) and their stocks are held by the Canada
Pension Plan. North and Young conclude that it remains extraordinarily difcult to sue a Canadian
corporation in Canadian courts for acts committed abroad. Of the seven abovementioned cases,
three have been dismissed and four are still under consideration. North and Young also note
that, although Canadian courts have dismissed these lawsuits, some have accepted jurisdiction
for conicts between Canadian companies operating in offshore locations.
With regard to the inter-American human rights system, North and Young identify two com-
plaints. One relates to water contamination that resulted in a ruling to suspend the operations of
the Marlin mine, which has not been implemented by the Guatemalan government (2007). The
second, considered admissible, relates to appropriation of ancestral protected land in Chile
(2010); however, they note that a similar case was led in 2007 with no success. In these
cases the plaintiffs addressed their respective states as responsible for licensing and regulating
the operations of the companies.

Conclusion and new research directions

The authors writing in this forum call for policy changes in regulatory and investment regimes, in
Canada and Latin America, that would provide a robust framework of accountability for the trans-
national extractives industry and thus contribute to peaceful resolution of the rising number of
socio-environmental conicts. However, the evidence at hand shows the limitations of legal
and legislative strategies.
We see in these articles multiple legal frameworks Canadian, Ecuadorian and other courts
as well as sources international law, CSR and tribunals. These sites would appear to gain their
value mostly through their capacity to rule in favour of one side or another. As we consider the
future of these issues, we might ask if it is worth advocating for more concrete forms of inter-
national jurisprudence, for broader jurisdictions to deal with these questions, and whether or
not courts ought to be theorised as autonomous sites of civil society or as merely instruments
for one party in a dispute or another. Recognising that they are often somewhere in between
and that we see here multiple claims being made in multiple courts what these articles most
beg is a theoretical framework for both understanding the law as a contemporary practice and
advocating for norms and practices that might allow for principled jurisprudence and the effective
implementation of judicial rulings going forward.
Lastly, it is interesting to note that a certain pessimism of those in the North who feel they have
lost the battle with the state is balanced by an optimism of those in the South who believe that the
battle has just begun. It is a dissonant inversion, as the Global North has historically positioned
itself as forward-looking and optimistic, while the Global South has a reputation for insular fatal-
ism. But it also may be the moment that we occupy, a fascinating and important period where
agency exists in places we usually do not expect to nd it.

Biographical notes
Daviken Studnicki-Gizbert is Associate Professor at the Department of History and Classical Studies at
McGill University. His research focuses on the social and environmental history of natural resource extrac-
tion in Latin America. This includes the environmental history of colonial mining, early Iberian discourses
on the transformation of nature, and the historical geography of mining in Mexico. He coordinates the
McGill Research Collective for the Investigation of Mining in Latin America (MICLA).
Fabiola Bazo is Adjunct Professor in the Latin American Studies Program at Simon Fraser University. Her
research interests include extractive industries and social conict, the rise of punk music in Peru (movida
subterranea) as a political voice for disenchanted youth in the 1980s, and the role of social media as a cat-
alyst for political change. She writes on current affairs in Peru.
78 D. Studnicki-Gizbert and F. Bazo

Notes
1. Earlier versions of the four other papers in this policy forum were presented at the conference Global
Capital, Global Rights, organized jointly by Simon Fraser University and the University of British
Columbia in Vancouver, BC, May 34, 2012.
2. For the press release, visit http://www.publicaffairs.ubc.ca/2012/11/23/ubc-sfu-to-further-global-
sustainable-mining-practices-through-25m-institute/.
3. The exact number is 1,516 projects in 2007.
4. On Ecuador, see Jennifer Moore and Teresa Velasquez (2011); and on Peru, see David Szablowski
(2007).
5. The 14 countries were: Argentina; Bolivia; Brazil; Chile; Colombia;Costa Rica; Cuba; Ecuador; Gua-
temala; Honduras; Mexico; Peru; Uruguay; and Venezuela. See Chaparro Avila (2002) for more
information.
6. For the Peruvian case, see http://www.cooperaccion.org.pe/comentario-institucional/actividad-minera-
no-garantiza-el-desarrollo.html.
7. See http://www.olca.cl/ocmal/index.php.
8. See http://micla.ca/conicts/.
9. See also Suzanna Sawyers (2004) masterful political ethnography of these issues.
10. The Ecuadorian amendments have only recently been appealed to successfully in courts (see Day
2012).
11. See Leire Urkidi and Mariana Walter (2011).

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