It is almost a full year since the South African Supreme Court held a hearing as to whether the 140,000 class action against Anglo American should go ahead. The community of Kabwe, Zambia, location of the former Broken Hill Mine, owned by Anglo American, still waits for justice.
The case, filed by Johannesburg and London law firms, Mbuyisa Moleele and Leigh Day, alleges that Anglo American was negligent in allowing uncontrolled lead contamination, and not ensuring that lead in the environment was cleaned up even after research showing widespread serious lead poisoning and deaths of local children.
The mine operated from 1906 until 1994. When it closed and the mining giant exited, the town was left with 6.4 million tonnes of lead waste. That ‘black mountain’ looms 30 metres high in the city. Dust from the toxic slag heap blows through the streets, polluting the community and devastating the environment. A total 95% of children in Kabwe have elevated levels of lead in their blood.
Over three decades since the mine closed, the people of Kabwe are waiting for justice. There have been no reparations. No city wide analysis of the scale of the ongoing disaster, no medical testing and treatment programme, no compensation and no effort to make the soil safe to grow food.
The fight for justice has been left to social justice lawyers, non-profit organisations and victims of the disaster.
UN Guiding Principles of Human Rights are clear that business must, i) Identify and assess human rights risks associated with their operations and supply chains, ii) Prevent and mitigate adverse impacts through policies, operational controls, and stakeholder engagement, iii) Provide remediation when harm occurs, either directly or through collaboration with other actors.
If these principles were truly embedded into the business model of extractive industries, like those of Anglo American, the people of Kabwe would not be still suffering. The gulf between glossy corporate, sustainability and community engagement policies and the lived reality of citizens living in the shadow of these mines is huge. The disconnect perpetuates a recurring cycle of extraction, corporate greed and devastation.
Baroness Young’s Private Members bill, Commercial Organisations and Public Authorities Duty (Human Rights and Environment) Bill, set for second reading in this parliamentary cycle, seeks to ‘place a duty on commercial organisations and public authorities to prevent human rights and environmental harms, including an obligation to conduct human rights and environmental due diligence, in their own operations, subsidiaries, and value chains in line with international standards; to make provision for civil liability, access to justice for victims, an enforcement body, penalties, and a criminal offence for failures to comply with the duty; and for connected purposes’.
With similar legislation passed in France and Germany, the direction of travel is clear: companies operating across borders are facing growing expectations to identify, prevent and remedy human rights and environmental harms throughout their operations and value chains. For global mining and extractive companies, this has particular significance. Their projects can span jurisdictions, communities and complex corporate structures, and the consequences of poor practice can endure for decades after a mine has closed.
The responsible course is therefore to act before the law compels companies to do so. Mining companies should be asking now whether their human rights and environmental due diligence is genuinely capable of preventing harm; whether communities and rights-holders have a meaningful voice; whether risks are properly identified and addressed across subsidiaries, contractors and supply chains; and whether there is a credible commitment to remediation when things go wrong. Responsible extraction should not depend on the threat of litigation, regulation or criminal sanction.
Kabwe is a stark reminder of what happens when responsibility ends with the closure of a mine and the company's departure. The emerging legal framework offers an opportunity to change that model: to make prevention, accountability and remedy part of the way extractive companies do business, rather than something communities have to fight for years later. The industry should embrace that responsibility now, not wait until it is compelled to.