Biz Human Rights Updates: 29 May – 11 June

Updates:

A new Decree to strengthen the business and human rights agenda has been passed in Colombia.  

Decree 0552 2026 is the first legislative instrument that focusses exclusively on the relationship between businesses and human rights. It aims to provide a unifying framework to the fragmented obligations that currently apply to businesses which developed since the adoption of the National Action Plan. It draws on relevant international frameworks on human rights and BHR, such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, OECD Guidelines, ILO Conventions, the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court and the Escazú Agreement, among others. 

Importantly, the Decree is a regulatory norm, not a binding law, and the mandatory obligations thereby falling on the state and not directly on the companies. Obligations entail the requirement for all entities of the Executive Branch of government to identify, prevent, mitigate and remediate adverse impacts. The decree further creates a Specialized Technical Committee which will support different executive entities, is tasked with developing technical and sectoral guidance and formulating an Action and Monitoring Plan for the next five years. Companies will indirectly be required to strengthen due diligence, for instance, through sectoral plans and public procurement processes. 

Operations have begun again at the controversial El Estor mine in Guatemala after a three-year suspension.

The nickel mine has resumed operations and started exporting its first 1200t of ferronickel to Taiwan in mid-May. Operations had been suspended after the US Treasury Department placed sanctions on a Russian executive, a Belarusian and two subsidiaries in charge of extraction at the site over corruption and influence trafficking linked to schemes involving politicians and judges, including the former President of the country. The individuals and subsidiaries are no longer connected to the operations as the Fenix Nickel, a US-based mining company, looks to improve its records by aiming to obtain the IRMA certification. 

The mine has faced extensive opposition from local Indigenous communities, as the company had not carried out consultations with the Indigenous Q’eqchi’ Maya prior to operate on their lands. At least two Indigenous leaders have been murdered and dozens attacked or prosecuted in recent years over protests against the mine’s reopening. In 2023, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled that Guatemala had violated Indigenous rights by clearing the mining concession. In addition, investigations have shown the company had concealed environmental damage for years and paid bribes to evade responsibility.  

Notes/Further Reading:

Greenpeace Brasil has published a new study laying open the ghost permits used mine 25.3 tons of gold illegally between 2018 and March 2026. 

The investigation has uncovered a system of mining permissions that were used to declare the origin of gold mined illegally in other, often protected, areas. Due to legal loopholes, lack of enforcement and the lack of a robust traceability system by the National Mining Agency (Agência Nacional de Mineração), 98 of the assessed 187 permits were found to be permits with irregularities. These in turn represented 97% of all declared gold in 187 permits analysed. The impacts often range from violating the rights of Indigenous Peoples and health impacts for communities to deforestation and other environmental impacts. 

A recently published study by Transparentem shows that communities affected by bauxite and aluminium mining in Brazil are still not being consulted. 

The study entailed conducting interviews with leaders and members of 40 communities affected by bauxite and aluminium mining operations in the states of Pará and Maranhão. Throughout the communities, interviewees stated that consultation processes for expansion of operations were non-existent or inadequate and environmental impacts on the communities continued to be high. Community members shared that they were continuously losing land and access to livelihoods and benefit-sharing mechanisms, where existent, were not sufficient.  

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Deforestation Legislation

Updates:

Colombia has passed a law strengthening traceability in the country’s cattle industry, hailed as a landmark legislative step. 

While deforestation has spiked and ebbed in recent years in Colombia, cattle has consistently been one of its most important drivers. The Livestock Traceability Law, which has been years in the making, aims to ensure full traceability of cattle from birth to the slaughterhouse. In addition, this could ensure that agriculture subsidies can betide to production that has been free from deforestation. 

Law 2585 which came into effect on 4 June, requires private and public actors to ensure their production is deforestation-free based on existing and strengthened monitoring systems. In addition, it allows officials to establish high surveillance zones in deforestation hotspots to carry out additional investigations. Upon the passing of additional obligations by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, companies will be required to seek official certification for deforestation-free supply chains, albeit it is open what this will entail.  

The legislation is not only targeted at cattle producers but will also entail due diligence requirements for slaughterhouses, meat processing facilities, cattle traders and livestock auction houses over the next two years. While a long time in the making, as investigations by civil society in previous years indicate, the law represents the first of its kind in a tropical forest country and moves the country’s rules closer to those of the EU.   

Notes/Further Reading:

A new spatiotemporal study of 16,627 mines across Sub-Saharan Africa shows the extent of mining-driven deforestation.

The assessment, which draws on country-wide data on post-deforestation land uses, found 187,000 hectares, an area roughly the size of Mauritius, of mining-driven deforestation, i.e., caused by aspects directly associated with mining operations such as pits, tailing ponds and spoil heaps. In addition, the study found that mining impacts persists up to 20km from the mine sites for up to ten years.

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Forced Labour Legislation 

Updates:

The US Trade Representative has concluded its probe into 60 trading partners finding that in most countries the acts, policies and practices failed to ban the imports of goods made with forced labour.

The report concluded that 54 countries had failed to impose a legal prohibition on the import of goods made with forced labour and the remaining six trading partners had failed to enforce theirs effectively. It highlighted that countries with an active forced labour ban, such as Canada or the UK, have failed to effectively implement it over years. Further it has criticised that the EUFLR as currently proposed does not include a public entity list nor establish a rebuttable presumption.   

The US trade representative, Jamieson Greer, argued on the back of the findings that the failure to prevent the imports of goods made with forced labour places US workers in a dynamic where they are forced to compete in an uneven playing field. As a result, the government has announced it would place tariffs (of 10-12.5%) on imports from the respective countries. While it is questionable if the solely motivated by combatting forced labour, civil society actors have echoed calls to strengthen forced labour bans in different countries such as the UK, where its Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner underlined that the law was inadequate to tackle forced labour in supply chains. 

Bumble Bee Foods achieved a partial victory in a forced labour lawsuit brought by four Indonesian fishermen. 

The four fishermen had sued the company over alleged forced labour practices including physical violence, untreated life-threatening and deformity-causing injuries, debt bondage, excessive working hours and lack of payment on Chinese-owned tuna vessels supplying the company. The Court had denied any injunctive relief, meaning it is not forced to implement certain protections in place for fishermen, including access to Wi-Fi, prompt monthly payments and returning to port regularly as was requested by the plaintiffs.

Nonetheless, the judge still recognised the plaintiff’s right to seek monetary damages over the harms that have occurred. It therefore did not rule against the partial responsibility Bumble Bee Foods carries for human rights violations in its supply chains. The case is one of only a few under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) with another being Ratha v. Rubicon which was put back in court in May.