The Institute for Human Rights and Business (IHRB) East Africa Programme has focused on building and sharing knowledge on responsible business conduct in the extractive sector in several of East Africa’s newly emerging producer countries, drawing on lessons learned from around the globe and the Institute’s broader extractives work. The work has focused on research such as this report (the Report) and its twin report for Kenya26 that draw together an evidence base to provide for more informed interaction among participants in the sector – the Government and Parliamentarians, the National Human Rights Institution (NHRI), extractive sector companies and their business partners, civil society organisations, trade unions and communities. The Report is particularly focused on supporting the NHRI in understanding key emerging concerns about and from the extractive sector in Tanzania and the actors involved so it can better target its actions to improving respect for human rights in the sector. This Report was carried out by the IHRB’s Nairobi Process, in collaboration with Tanzania’s Commission for Human Rights and Good Governance (CHRAGG) – Tanzania’s National Human Rights Institution (NHRI) – through both desk-based and field research in areas host to oil and gas (O&G) and mining activities. The purpose of the Report is to provide a more in-depth analysis of the many human rights issues and broader sustainable development challenges associated with the rapidly evolving extractives sector. While many of the issues are common to other countries with O&G and mining operations and vulnerable land dependent rural populations and governance challenges, the Report seeks to contextualise these issues within the Tanzanian historical, political and economic context. The Report is particularly focused on supporting the NHRI in understanding key emerging concerns about and from the extractive sector in Tanzania and the actors involved so it can better target its actions to improving human rights in the sector. The Report is framed by the concept of “responsible business conduct” and the standards that help define that conduct. The Report does not address technical operating standards for the extractives sector. Instead, it is grounded in international standards relevant to responsible business conduct, particularly those concerning impacts of business activities on human rights. This is because there is an increasingly global expectation that Institute for Human Rights and Business | www.ihrb.org 1 0 Human Rights in Tanzania’s Extractive Sector: Exploring the Terrain Executive Summary Institute for Human Rights and Business | www.ihrb.org 11 businesses, big and small, should take responsibility for their adverse impacts on society – human rights, social, environmental, ethical, and consumer concerns – whether or not those impacts have been specifically addressed in national law. The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (“the UN Guiding Principles” or “UNGPs”)27 are an authoritative global standard that set out international expectations across the three-pillar ‘Protect, Respect and Remedy’ policy framework. The UNGPs were endorsed by the UN Human Rights Council in 2011 and have been widely endorsed and applied by governments, business and CSOs in the five years since adoption.28 The UNGPs framework recognises the complimentary but distinct obligations that States and businesses have in protecting and respecting human rights, as well as in providing effective remedy mechanisms when those obligations are inadequately met. The UNGPs provide the first globally agreed upon standard that sets out these roles