On March 2, 2021, the Federal Court of Canada will hear arguments in a lawsuit that seeks information about the Canadian government’s response to a human rights case concerning a Canadian-owned mine in Guatemala. The suit was brought by York University law professor and co-founder of the Justice & Corporate Accountability Project (JCAP), Shin Imai, who first sought the information through access-to-information requests in 2014.

The documents released to date, though redacted, show that Canadian officials engaged on Goldcorp’s behalf with decision-makers in Guatemala and Washington after the Organization of American States’ human rights commission called for a suspension of operations at the company’s Marlin mine in 2010. The Guatemalan government ultimately denied the commission’s request, which was meant to protect the rights of Indigenous communities, and the commission retracted it in 2011.