Dr. Chris O'Connell:

I thank the Senator for the question. I will ask Ms Quijano, who is joining us by video link, to come in after my remarks. Unfortunately, as the Deputy may have picked up, even if we could name particular companies, they would only be examples of a much wider trend. I do not know if it is clear to members of the committee that the two organisations represented at this meeting are from different parts of Guatemala. Nonetheless, we can hear the same recurrent themes in their statements. There is a particular additional element, legally speaking, when it comes to indigenous people. They have particular rights that are guaranteed under international instruments such as ILO convention 169, which has been mentioned. This convention gives countries the right to be consulted on projects that would affect the development of indigenous peoples in their territories. The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples goes further by giving them the right to free prior and informed consent to any such project. There are recurrent violations and breaches across all of what we are call the extractive industries. Mining has been mentioned in particular cases, but this right is routinely violated in large-scale infrastructure projects such as hydroelectric dams, in agribusiness and in logging. Other laws, such as environmental laws, are frequently broken. The rarity with which environmental impact assessments are carried out before projects are greenlit and invested in is remarkable. Leaving that aside, the other big part of the problem is that there often are not the laws that there should be. This is what we are saying about the gaps that exist in national and regional laws and at international level. We have a set of voluntary guidelines, the UN guiding principles, that set out certain practices; for example, they provide that human rights due diligence should be carried out. Due to its voluntary nature, we find it is far more observed in the absence than in practice. I ask Ms Quijano to add something from her expertise.