Petroleum Resources Development Act (MPRDA) provides dispute-resolution procedures for mining-related displacements. The Prevention of Illegal Eviction Act (PIE) and Extension of Security Act (ESTA) add further protections for occupiers. In March 2022, the Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy published the Mine Community Resettlement Guidelines – the most explicit regulatory statement anywhere in the research on the obligation to fund legal representation for affected parties. The Guidelines require mining right holders to pay for the legal representation of affected parties in dispute resolution, and contemplate that no mining activity may commence until a resettlement agreement is reached. Yet the Guidelines are precisely that: guidelines. They lack the force of law, cannot be enforced against non-compliant mining companies, and the Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources lacks capacity to compel adherence. The Guidelines represent an important policy signal while simultaneously illustrating the gap between aspiration and enforceable obligation that characterises the broader international landscape. CASE STUDY: THE DINGLETON RESETTLEMENT Dingleton was a town situated adjacent to Anglo American subsidiary Kumba Iron Ore’s Sishen Mine in South Africa’s Northern Cape Province. The town’s origins were inseparable from Apartheid-era spatial engineering; built as a whites-only settlement in the 1950s and subsequently transferred to residents classified as ‘Coloured’ under the apartheid classification system. When the company announced in December 2007 that it would relocate the town, it publicly committed to compliance with international best practice, including IFC PS5 guidelines. In practice, the resettlement fell substantially short of those commitments. Families were moved to temporary camps in 2014 and container accommodations for years without justification under the IFC PS5, which discourages prolonged temporary displacement, requiring minimized duration, adequate living conditions and transitional support when people are temporarily resettled. The company declared the resettlement complete at its 2021 Annual General Meeting while at least 50 households remained un-resettled in temporary locations. At that time, court cases, mediation and potential arbitration processes were still ongoing. And the Resettlement Close-Out Audit was completed only in 2025, even though there are at least 50 households still waiting to move to permanent housing at time of writing in February 2026. The legal representation arrangement at Dingleton crystallises the central problem this paper addresses. The initial community legal representation (paid for by Kumba Iron Ore) was primarily to assist with conveyancing of property rights and focused primarily on the approximately 30% of the affected households who were property owners. Later, as people started to resist the resettlement and refused to move, more lawyers moved in to assist the affected households. Unfortunately, the households could not afford to pay legal fees, and most lawyers chose to withdraw. Sometime in late 2017, early 2018, an arrangement between a legal firm and Kumba Iron Ore resulted in the company agreeing to pay for the community’s legal costs. At the same time a facilitator of the process, who later morphed into the mediator, was 110
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