Barrick Gold’s North Mara gold mine in Tanzania. Photo by Twiga Minerals/Instagram.

Three months ago, Canadian mining giant Barrick Gold received some good news. A case filed against the company by Tanzanian villagers, alleging Barrick’s complicity in extrajudicial killings by mine security, had been tossed out by an Ontario court. It was the third case brought against Barrick in ten years on the same issue: alleged company involvement in the maiming and killing of Indigenous Kuria peoples by security forces at the North Mara gold mine.

The previous two cases against Barrick were settled out of court in 2015 and 2024. Of these outcomes, MiningWatch Canada’s Catherine Coumans stated, “It is simply incomprehensible that a major Canadian company like Barrick seems to prefer settling lawsuits on behalf of victims of alleged excess use of force, rather than to take effective steps to stop the violence.”

This time, the court asserted that it did not have jurisdiction to try Barrick for alleged abuses committed in Tanzania, invoking a common-law doctrine known as forum non conveniens. This refers to a court’s discretionary power to decline to exercise its jurisdiction over a lawsuit on the basis that a court or forum in another jurisdiction is more suitable. As a result of forum non conveniens, “lawsuits filed in Canada by foreign plaintiffs alleging wrongdoings by Canadian companies have been dismissed and sent back to languish or die a quick death in the plaintiffs’ home countries.”

In the past, plaintiffs have filed successful appeals against such........

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