My Interest in Business Ethics

Region
International

Sector
Voluntary Sector / NGO

Areas of Interest
Accountability ; Accountability - Certification ; Accountability - Reporting ; Corporate Citizenship ; Corporate Governance ; Corporate Governance - Self-Regulation ; Corporate Governance - Transparency ; Corporate Social Responsibility ; Corruption ; Development ; Economic - Environmental ; Economic - Social ; Gender ; Globalization ; Health ; Human Rights ; Indigenous People ; Labour ; Labour - Health & Safety ; Poverty ; Public Policy ; Resource Extraction ; SRI/Responsible Investment


Me in Brief

Research Coordinator and Coordinator Asia-Pacific Program at MiningWatch Canada

My academic engagement with mining’s impact on communities dates back to my Ph.D. research on the island of Marinduque in the Philippines in 1988-1990. I hold an M.Sc. (London School of Economics) and a Ph.D. (McMaster University) in Cultural Anthropology and carried out Postdoctoral research at Cornell University. I taught at Cornell and McMaster. My recent publications include: Mining, Human Rights, and the Socially Responsible Investment Industry: an examination of community opposition to shareholder resolutions (2012);Occupying Spaces Created by Conflict: Anthropologists, Development NGOs, Responsible Investment and Mining. Current Anthropology (2011); Whose development? Mining, local resistance and development agendas (2011); Alternative Accountability Mechanisms and Mining: the problems of effective impunity, human rights and agency. Canadian Journal of Development Studies. (2010); Realising Solidarity: Indigenous peoples and NGOs in the contested terrains of mining and corporate accountability (2008); Framework for Responsible Mining: A Guide to Evolving Standards. (2005 - co-author, www.frameworkforresponsiblemining.org ).

I have provided expert testimony on mining in two congressional inquiries in the Philippines (1999, 2001), before the Constitutional Court in Indonesian (2005), before the Parliamentary committees in Canada (Sub-Committee on Human Rights and Democratic Development in Canada, 2005; Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and Democratic Development, 2009) and in an Amici Brief for the Supreme Court of the United States (2008). In 2006 I was asked by the Government of Canada to participate on an Advisory Group of the Canadian Government's National Roundtables on CSR and the Canadian Extractive Industry in Developing Countries. I have participated in numerous Canadian government-led multistakeholder processes on mining. I am currently on the Steering Committee of the Canadian Center of Excellence in Extractive Resources (2009-2012).

I work with non-governmental organizations and mining affected communities in the Asia-Pacific region in particular in: India, Burma, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Kanaky-New Caledonia, and Mongolia. My work has focussed on indigenous peoples affected by Canadian mining companies. My policy research and work on mining is focussed on legislated accountability and access to justice in home countries of mining companies, the development of effective non-judicial accountability mechanisms, standards, verification systems, certification systems, community agency and the problems with partnerships.