There are more than 800 ongoing conflicts involving the extractive industries (mining, gas and oil) and communities impacted by extractive activity. Most of these conflicts are in the developing countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America. Extractives industries promote their corporate social responsibility (CSR) and multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) as ways to minimize conflicts.
However, despite flaunting their impressive CSR credentials multinational corporations find themselves in conflict with the communities in which they operate because of the negative social and environmental impacts of mining and extraction.
Bobby Banerjee provides a critical analysis of these conflicts and offers a community based framework that can enable a more progressive approach to the governance of natural resource extraction. Gabriela Quijano will provide a response based on here campaigning experience.
The presentations will be followed by a discussion and then a networking reception with wine and snacks.
Bobby Banerjee is Associate Dean of Research and Enterprise at Cass Business School, City University of London. He was Director of the Executive PhD program at Cass from 2014 to 2019. His research interests are in the areas of corporate social responsibility, sustainability, climate change, resistance movements and Indigenous ecology.
Gabriela Quijano is the legal adviser on business and human rights at the International Secretariat of Amnesty International. Since 2009, she has led the organization’s work on access to remedy for business-related human rights abuses. In this capacity, she has done research on cases in the Americas, Asia and Africa, legal analysis on barriers to justice and advocacy to improve corporate legal accountability and remedial mechanisms. Gabriela holds a Master’s degree on the Theory and Practice of Human Rights from the Human Rights Centre of Essex University. She practiced civil, commercial and corporate law in Buenos Aires prior to moving to the UK.
Photo by Dominik Vanyi on Unsplash