Home Complaints database Chilean Indigenous community vs. anonymous foreign mining company
Complaint

Chilean Indigenous community vs. anonymous foreign mining company

Mining company’s lack of good faith engagement with Indigenous community

Date filed
3 February 2021
Keywords
Countries of harm
Current status
Withdrawn
Sector
NCP

Allegations

On 3 February 2021, a Chilean Indigenous community filed a complaint to the Chilean NCP against an anonymous foreign mining company. The complainants alleged that the company had not met various expectations in the OECD Guidelines, including in relation to the Human Rights and Environment chapters, by failing to engage in good faith with the community regarding its extraction projects.

According to the complainants, the company approached the community with the objective of obtaining a social license to carry out extractive projects in their ancestral territories (to obtain an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)), making commitments that they allegedly repudiated after withdrawing from the EIA process. Additionally, the complainants allege that the company violated equal conditions in formalising a socio-environmental agreement between the company and the community.

The complainants seek for the company to: (1) recognise the community’s role as an impacted stakeholder in generating the company’s revenues; (2) return to respecting the principles it allegedly violated during the community relations process, namely good faith, reciprocity, and transparency; (3) fulfil its commitment to sign the pending socio-environmental agreement based on the company’s responsibility to respect human rights; and (4) respond to the community’s counter-proposal for the closure phase agreement.

Relevant OECD Guidelines

Outcome

On 28 April 2021, prior to the NCP’s completion of its initial assessment, the complainants informed the NCP of their request to withdraw from the process due to reaching an agreement with the company outside of the NCP process.

On 27 July 2023, the NCP published its final statement, officially rejecting the complaint, but noting the complainants withdrew from the complaint process. The NCP recommended that the company implement responsible business conduct standards and risk-based due diligence in accordance with the Guidelines and encourage its business partners to do the same, and promote meaningful engagement with stakeholders. The final statement ended the NCP process.

Note: OECD Watch’s database records this complaint as ‘withdrawn’ despite the NCP’s official decision to reject/not accept the case. The complaint was withdrawn by the complainants on the basis that an agreement was reached with the company outside of the official NCP process.

More details

Defendant
Company in violation
Complainants
Affected people
Date rejected / concluded
27 July 2023

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