Far from being a neutral, settled and purely procedural exercise, stakeholder consultation in the extractive industries constitutes a highly contested arena in which communities, companies and governments vie for power and legitimacy to negotiate, (re)shape and influence the rules, norms and decision-making structures governing the sector. The questions around the truest character, form and meaning of stakeholder consultation, how it is (or should be) understood, interpreted, practised and governed are all intersecting constellations of this burgeoning problem, i.e., the contestation. At the centre of Contested Consultations in the Extractive Industries lie these key questions of practical and theoretical significance, addressed expertly from global and comparative perspectives. Anyone who interrogates such questions either from theory or practice standpoints, whether from the Global South or North, will find this book appealing for its rich account of case studies and well-framed analyses of the overlapping stakeholder consultation processes and governance ‘as an emerging or unfinished regime …’ (p. 252). The book assembles a balanced and impressive cohort of eminent and emerging scholars and practitioners from across the globe to help in sourcing well-considered expert responses to these seminal questions. It is indeed ‘a truly global and collaborative effort’ (p. xiii), being edited by five internationally acclaimed experts in business and human rights and related aspects—Haslam, Andrews, Buhmann, Odumosu-Ayanu and Stoddart.
The book is well-structured, presented in 20 solid chapters, most of which are constitutive of country- and region-specific case studies from the Global North and South. The book is also organised thematically in four parts. The first part, consisting of three chapters, provides a general entry point into the volume by examining the different logics of contestation surrounding the consultation regime. The second part, with four chapters, engages the various perspectives that demonstrate the contested nature of the meaning of consultation and the rights associated with it. The third part, also with four chapters, examines the processes of stakeholder consultation and how they enhance or stifle the meaningfulness of consultation practice for the participants, especially project-affected people. The fourth part consists of seven chapters and makes a unique contribution by providing practical insights from practitioners who encountered the consultation regime on the ground. The last part offers a critical synthesis of key observations and draws the main conclusions. The concluding chapter in this part draws together the key insights and new knowledge produced in each chapter, highlighting how these individual contributions collectively strengthen and advance the book’s central thesis.
The book proceeds with an introductory section outlining a coherent thesis and framework that seeks to bind the disparate contributions coherently into one integrated whole. The editors take the reader through a quick recap of the state of knowledge and global literature around stakeholder consultation; the overlapping frameworks governing it across jurisdictions; the contested nature of its meaning and interpretation; the complexity of its governance and practice, among others. This introductory and framing chapter is important since most of the subsequent country-specific case study contributions rely significantly on its grounding for conceptual and historical reference. Chapter 2 argues that consultation with project-affected people remains deeply contested because understandings of what it entails are grounded in Indigenous laws, land relations, cultural identity and self-determination rights, while governments and companies often adopt weaker consultation standards as opposed to consent-based approaches. The chapter further highlights how inconsistent recognition and implementation of Indigenous rights across different government agencies and companies create fragmented consultation processes and increase conflict over resource development decisions. Building on this, Chapter 3 demonstrates how consultation frameworks can be weakened when governments and companies prioritise investment, profit-making and business interests over Indigenous rights, reinforcing the gap between meaningful participation and consent-based consultation. It achieves this by examining how the Global Smart Mining Initiative, despite aiming to promote sustainable mining and stakeholder participation, was largely shaped by mining company interests and weak state implementation, resulting in consultation processes that often excluded Indigenous Peoples as rights-holders. Chapter 4 appreciates how stakeholder consultation practices—influenced by local state-society relations and corporate cultures—vary significantly across contexts, even when guided by international best practices. The chapter draws comparative perspectives between Canada and Norway to demonstrate this point. These three chapters are complementary. While Chapter 2 explains the contested nature of consultation due to contradictory understandings of Indigenous rights and uneven state recognition, and Chapter 3 shows how consultation frameworks can be captured by business interests and weak governance, Chapter 4 adds a social and institutional dimension by highlighting how consultation outcomes are also influenced by national political systems and corporate cultures or backgrounds.
Focused on the Canadian context, Chapter 5 contends that consultation and consent should be viewed as two distinct concepts: the former should focus on identifying and addressing the impacts on Indigenous rights, while the latter requires substantive consensus and certainty on a proposed course of action. Chapter 6 then explores how such consensus between governments, Indigenous people and companies could be achieved to facilitate clarity and strengthen working relations among the stakeholders on their understandings of difference or relationship between consent and consultation. It argues that consent is not a single step or an outcome one arrives at, but an ongoing process that begins with consultation, involves the communication of assent, and is built on mutual trust, relationships, Indigenous agency and the exercise of self-determination rights. Chapter 7 demonstrates how this is not the case in the Canadian experience, where focus seems to be more on procedural engagement than actual protection and fulfilment of Indigenous rights in a fragmented governance system. Chapter 8 adopts a gendered lens to the discourse, arguing that formal consultation processes often exclude Indigenous women and grassroots knowledge-holders by focusing only on official leadership structures, such as Chiefs and Councils. It uses the Wolastoqiyik and Mi’kmaq Grandmothers as an example to demonstrate how Indigenous laws, traditional governance and international human rights frameworks support a more inclusive approach to consultation that recognises women as important land and water defenders.
The authors in Chapter 9 contend that stakeholder consultation processes in relation to Environmental and Social Impact Assessments (ESIAs) often become a tick-box compliance-driven exercise that meets legal requirements but fails to create meaningful participation for affected communities. The authors argue that meaningful consultation requires early or prior engagement, accessible information, sensitivity to local contexts and opportunities for communities to shape their own development futures rather than merely react to decisions already made. Chapter 10, similarly, highlights how—despite Brazilian law guaranteeing rights to public participation and information—emergency tailings dam decommissioning projects have often undermined such rights due to exemptions from ESIA requirements, short timelines, and limited public engagement. Chapter 11 makes a similar observation, albeit in the Ghanaian context. The authors contend that mining consultations in Ghana are ineffective because traditional leaders and property holders dominate negotiations, excluding ordinary community members with limited influence. This is attributable to many factors, including weak government oversight, unresolved environmental and property concerns, and the reliance on voluntary corporate benefits. Chapter 12 makes the case for the integration of human rights due diligence into impact assessments to strengthen responsible business conduct by prioritising the rights of affected communities. Early, ongoing and meaningful engagement with rights-holders is particularly emphasised.
The practitioner insights contributions, i.e., from Chapters 13 to 19, are an important addition to this book. In unique but complementary ways, the chapters explore consultation in the extractive sector through experiences from government, industry, civil society and legal advocacy, all highlighting the growing importance of inclusive and meaningful engagement, recognition of rights and community consent. The chapters emphasise good practices such as transparent consultation processes, long-term relationship building, local context-sensitive engagement, and collaborative partnerships between mining companies, governments and affected communities. Several chapters focus on Indigenous rights, demonstrating how consultation is increasingly linked to self-determination, governance, and Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC), while also examining the role of courts and human rights mechanisms in strengthening public and corporate accountability. Industry perspectives showcase voluntary standards and community partnerships as tools for responsible mining, whereas civil society contributors argue that existing consultation systems remain inadequate and must evolve towards full and ongoing consent of affected communities. Collectively, the chapters reveal both progress and persistent challenges in consultation practice, including governance barriers, legal ambiguities and power imbalances, while advocating for more democratic, rights-based and participatory and meaningful approaches to decision-making in the extractive industries.
Overall, this book is a welcome contribution to the global discourse on the subject. It represents a valuable and absorbing read for anyone interested in understanding the normative tensions that characterise stakeholder consultation in extractive industries, and I believe it is appealing to a wide and interdisciplinary audience with various backgrounds. Its major strength and novelty lie in its comparative scope and interdisciplinary approach, which illuminate the tensions between legal requirements, rules, corporate practices, Indigenous norms and community expectations in an evolving international space.
However, I noted some missed opportunities that, if addressed, would have significantly enriched the analytical depth and overall rigour of the book. While the introductory chapter promises a consistent framing of stakeholder consultation from the perspective of regime theory, not all contributions live up to this promise. Some contributions are grounded in different theories which are not always complementary to the theoretical outlook of the book. A consistent application of regime theory across chapters and jurisdictions would have provided a much clearer picture of the problem of the stakeholder consultation regime and how contestation has shaped it over time, if at all. I also believe that research on stakeholder consultation and compliance with its rules can be conducted from two distinct approaches, i.e., the objectivist approach, which tends to focus on the normative, policy-oriented assessment and critique of regulatory design, enforcement and implementation, and the interpretative approach, which is more interested in the responses to the regulatory framework. To a larger extent, contributions take an objectivist approach to the study of stakeholder consultation in the extractive sector—i.e., whether corporate conduct or practices meet regulatory frameworks on consultation. A more balanced approach, incorporating a constructivist approach, could have substantially enriched the analysis, for instance, by moving beyond the legal, institutional and procedural dimensions of stakeholder consultation to closely examine how the meanings of consultation, rights, participation, consent and legitimacy are culturally or socially constructed and contested by different actors across jurisdictions. However, these shortcomings do not take away from the substantive theoretical and practical contributions in this book.
In conclusion, Contested Consultations in the Extractive Industries is an insightful and well-structured collection that advances understanding of the evolving consultation regime in extractive industries across the world. Human rights advocates, BHR scholars, policymakers, students interested in extractive governance and community participation, practitioners in the sector, corporate agents and the individuals whose rights are impacted by extractive business activity can take much from this book.
