FREEPORT IN WEST PAPUA: BRINGING CORPORATIONS TO ACCOUNT FOR INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES UNDER AUSTRALIAN CRIMINAL AND TORT LAW

American company Freeport McMoRan Copper and Gold Inc ('Freeport') has been accused of participating in serious human rights abuses through the activities of its subsidiary, PT Freeport Indonesia, in gold and copper mining operations in West Papua (formerly known as Irian Jays),(1) Indonesia. Persistent allegations surround the operations involving violence committed by military and private security forces in the mining region against Indigenous and local groups.(2) Freeport has disclosed that it provides financial and material resources to those forces, in return for obtaining security in the region. Australian company Rio Tinto was a 13% shareholder in Freeport over the period from mid-1995 to March 2004, as well as being (and remaining) a joint venture partner in the 1997 Grasberg mine extensions.(3) The commencement of the association between Rio Tinto and Freeport came at about the time of the release of a series of independent reports by human rights organisations regarding human rights abuses by security forces within the mining concession area,(4) and has continued during a period tainted by further like allegations.