Law Students Unearth Dirt On Gold

Gold mining in Guyana inflicts “severe environmental, health, and social damage on the areas and people near mining operations,” according to a Harvard Law School report released this week.

The situation in Guyana reflects a broader global concern, said Bonnie L. Docherty, a clinical instructor at the Law School who helped produce the report.

“It’s a classic example of the linkage between environmental damage and human rights abuses,” she said, citing the indigenous Guyanese population’s dependence on local rivers for food, water, and other needs.

Docherty helped organize two 2005 missions to Guyana by the International Human Rights Clinic, the branch of the Law School’s Human Rights Program that released the report.

The study says that poorly regulated mining practices are at the root of drastically increased sedimentation and mercury levels in the country’s waterways, which have led to public health crises among local communities.

Docherty said the report is the first of its kind to comprehensively address the problems of small-scale mining in the often-overlooked South American nation.

Entitled “All that Glitters: Gold Mining in Guyana,” the study documents the failure of Guyanese mining regulations to prevent human rights abuses and environmental devastation in the inner regions of the country.

In addition to analyzing the nature of the problem in Guyana and suggesting specific steps that the government should take to relieve the situation, the report also urges members of the international community to pressure corporations and the Guyanese government itself to comply with current international human rights law.

Docherty encouraged students interested in helping those negatively affected by the Guyanese mining industry to support environmental research and human rights advocacy.

Alexander C. Paddington ’07, publicity chair for the Harvard College Caribbean Club, expressed a willingness to collaborate with other student groups to help raise campus awareness about the issue.

Paddington said that the club has not worked extensively on human rights issues in the past, but that problems such as those raised in the report could lead the organization to consider getting involved. Upholding the rights of indigenous Amerindians is “definitely something that needs to be addressed,” he said.