GLAN files simultaneous complaints to the NCPs in UK, Switzerland and Australia where Cerrejón’s parent companies are based.

We also file two complaints to the Irish NCP about Irish energy company ESB’s relationship with Cerrejón and the sales wing of Cerrjon known as CMC which is operates from Dublin. We argue that the mine must progressively closed down and its impacts remedied.

We mediate with Irish energy company ESB over their purchases of coal from the Cerrejón mine, asking them to stop all imports immediately.

This was the first time that communities affected by the mine directly engaged with purchasers of Cerrejón coal.

As the result of the formal complaint lodged in January 2021 with the Irish OECD watchdog, the Irish NCP’s delivered its Final Statement in November 2025. It called on ESB to address failures in how it responded to serious human rights impacts linked to coal imports from the notorious Cerrejón mine. The Final Statement  highlighted serious insufficiencies with the Bettercoal certification scheme, which ESB has hidden behind when challenged on the human rights impact of its imports of Cerrejón coal. The NCP expressed concerns over Bettercoal’s lack of transparency, non-inclusion of independent voices in assessment mechanism, and the fact that its human rights impact assessments were six years out of date. A gap that was in breach of Bettercoal’s own rules and ESB’s duty to ensure ongoing due diligence under the OECD Guidelines.