Summary
This discussion paper seeks to start a conversation on what banks must do to put commitments on free, prior and informed consent into practice. It acknowledges that there are legitimate questions about how banks can operationalize free, prior and informed consent commitments. It seeks to explain clearly why free, prior and informed consent is important and outlines the forces that are making it a prominent human rights, environmental and governance issue, including, among other aspects, rapidly escalating violence towards people who peacefully speak out on landrelated issues. This paper also highlights how free, prior and informed consent can help banks ensure that they have obtained an accurate situational analysis and help them manage operational, legal, financial, compliance and reputational risks. It gives examples of concrete actions that banks can take to get started on operationalizing free, prior and informed consent and outlines priorities for action. However, it is critical to call out an existing culture where banks frequently ignore or fail to prioritize the legal and human rights of marginalized people. The paper also explicitly identifies 'red lines' - core commitments that constitute a threshold for assessing banks' goodwill on land-related human rights, environmental and governance issues. This publication is copyright but the text may be used free of charge for the purposes of advocacy, campaigning, education, and research, provided that the source is acknowledged in full. The copyright holder requests that all such use be registered with them for impact assessment purposes. For copying in any other circumstances, or for re-use in other publications, or for translation or adaptation, permission must be secured and a fee may be charged. Email
[email protected].