In the context of land-based investments, rapid response mechanisms (RRMs) are legal, social and technical support strategies that enable communities to quickly seek help for land conflicts. RRMs aim to identify potential community–investor conflicts as early as possible and provide affected communities with the legal and technical support necessary to prevent the conflict or its escalation. RRMs can be used in contexts where investment projects overlap with community rights and where there is a high likelihood of: conflict or human rights abuses; water and soil pollution; ecological destruction; illegal exploitation of timber, minerals and wildlife; illegal encroachment into community lands; and other kinds of harms.

How to use this toolkit

The intended audience for this publication are lawyers, paralegals, advocates, legal empowerment practitioners and NGOs or institutions that support local communities and Indigenous Peoples impacted by large-scale investments.

Part One briefly describes what Rapid Response Mechanisms are and how they might be useful.

Part Two then details the logistics of how your organisation might set up a rapid response mechanism — both in contexts of relative freedom and low levels of citizen fear of the state, and in contexts where people live within an atmosphere of fear and intimidation, and where taking action may be dangerous to both individuals and organisations. The basic steps of setting up an RRM include: clearly setting criteria for what kinds of cases you will take on, and in what areas; allocating staff time; creating an intake questionnaire; setting up a database to track and log cases that come in; setting up systems to allow affected communities to contact your organisation to report latent, nascent or escalating conflicts; and creating a system to efficiently triage cases to provide the right kind of support — either immediately after receiving the request for help or within a short time period.

Part Three suggests tactics for researching and understanding each community–investor conflict, and then describes various strategies that your organisation (together with the affected communities) might choose to pursue to successfully resolve the conflict or seek necessary protections and redress. Part Four then briefly outlines how your organisation might use the data collected in your RRM database to advocate for policy changes that can address the underlying, systemic and root causes of community–investor conflict in your country.

Appendix A sets out various legal frameworks and policies that your organisation may want to use or leverage when supporting communities facing conflicts with investors.

Appendix B suggests other resources, including guides and useful publications, global organisations who may be able to provide support, and links for filing grievances or lodging complaints with global oversight bodies.