We are writing on behalf of the Justice & Corporate Accountability Project (JCAP), in response to your invitation to concerned groups to provide input to Global Affairs Canada on how to best strengthen the 2016 Voices at Risk: Canada’s Guidelines on Supporting Human Rights Defenders (“the Guidelines”). JCAP is a volunteer–driven transnational, collaborative, community–based legal clinic that assists in holding corporations and states to account by offering legal knowledge to communities that are negatively affected by natural resource extraction. JCAP has cultivated specific expertise in supporting Indigenous and Campesino communities in the Americas and has also supported communities in Africa.
By Charis Kamphuis and Shin Imai