The accountability gap in Africa’s extractive sector is not a result of the absence of binding legal frameworks or investment regulations. The African human rights system has advanced global jurisprudence by introducing and applying innovative human rights and investment norms. Despite the robust human rights regime, including legally binding regional norms for redressing human rights abuses, local communities continue to suffer the consequences of extractive MNCs’ egregious human rights abuses without access to remedies. Corporate impunity is often fueled by governments’ reluctance or inability to hold these corporations accountable and by local communities’ limited access to effective remedies. While extractive MNCs in Africa are legally obligated to respect human rights, the continent needs a robust enforcement mechanism and the political will to hold defaulting enterprises accountable. Hence, I propose strategies to implement the region’s rich human rights and investment initiatives and to narrow the accountability gap in the extractive sector.

This article examines how operational-level grievance mechanisms (OGMs) implemented by transnational mining companies in Africa entrench corporate control over victims’ access to remedy. Although OGMs are central to the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, their deployment in weak governance contexts often transforms them from early-warning tools into the sole avenue for redress. Through a comparative analysis of four different mines that reveal converging mining and business and human rights dynamics unique to Africa, this article considers how OGMs reproduce power asymmetries through opaque procedures, limited consultation, information imbalances, and unpredictable remedies. These dynamics undermine the UNGPs’ effectiveness criteria and reveal structural gaps within Pillar Three’s design. The article argues for alternatives, such as independent grievance mechanisms and additional guidance on implementing the UNGPs that guarantee legal representation, prohibit restrictive waivers, and introduce sector-specific recommendations. Without such changes, OGMs risk legitimising corporate abuses rather than remedying harm.