"UN Calls Out Polluting Argentine Mine Toxics and Human Rights Office says Veladero Mine is a Persistent Polluter", 16 November 2022

...[T]he United Nations Special Rapporteur on Toxics and Human Rights published a letter expressing concerns over water contamination from the Veladero gold mine in northwest Argentina. The letter was also signed by the Chair-Rapporteur Working Group on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises, as well as the Special Rapporteur on the Issue of Human Rights Obligations Relating to the Enjoyment of a Safe, Clean, Healthy and Sustainable Environment.

The letter was sent on September 16 to the governments of Argentina, Canada and China, as well as the two mining companies operating the site, Barrick Gold and Shandong Gold, who were given 60 days to respond before it was made public. To date, only the Argentinian government’s reply, requesting more time to provide a response, has been made public. 

The letter references repeated spills of toxic chemicals used in gold processing that have been exposed and systematically documented by the Jáchal No Se Toca Assembly...

The Special Rapporteurs stated that, “We are especially concerned that these spills severely affect the right to life, the right to the highest possible degree of health, the right to food, the right to access to information, the right to environmental justice, the right to potable water, the right to work and secure working conditions, and the right to a clean, healthy, sustainable environment free of toxic substances”...