How a lawyer fought for 1000s of South Africans in a British court to win compensation for asbestos exposure

In April 2001, thousands of South Africans suffering from asbestos-related diseases won a case against the company Cape plc and were jointly awarded over R500 million (£21 million) after the case was fought in a British court.

The over 7,000 claimants had worked for or lived near the asbestos mining and milling operation run until 1979 by the British company's subsidiary, Cape Asbestos.

The claims were valued at more than R1 billion (£50 million) but the claimants' lawyers accepted that the amount agreed on was all that the company could pay.

Now a book has been published that recounts this extraordinary years-long legal battle, led by young British lawyer Richard Meeran.

'Meeran's case against Cape represented a turning point in making corporations pay for their human rights abuses overseas, and its impact helped launch the global corporate social responsibility movement that continues today.'

Written by Professor David Kinley, a leading global expert on human rights law and corporate accountability, the book is titled In a Rain of Dust: Death, Deceit, and the Lawyer Who Busted Big Asbestos.

Prof. Kinley says he's been teaching this to his students for 25 years as a very important legal case.

"It was a British company mining and milling asbestos mainly in the Northern Cape and also in what's now Limpopo. They were exposing their workers both to blue and brown asbestos, which are the two most dangerous forms of asbestos on earth. What's more, the way in which they were mining and milling was so careless I think we can definitively say that those people who lived in the communities around them also suffered from asbestos-related diseases."

"This case was based largely on that fact - those people who were environmentally exposed to asbestos dust had no compensatory avenues whatsoever until the negligence claim that was brought against Cape, saying 'you knew about this, you didn't take enough care for your workers or those living in the community'."

"Crucially, that action was brought in the British courts to sue a British company for what it had done in South Africa."

"The question is when it became known that asbestos was harmful... And really, the very first indications of this were in Britain in the 1920s when people were seen to die, to actually suffocate from over-exposure to asbestos." 

"Globally, the real breakthrough moment came in the early 1960s when South African scientists were able to demonstrate an unequivocal link between blue asbestos being mined in the Northern Cape, and Mesothelioma, as well as many other asbestos-related diseases."

Prof. David Kinley, Author - In a Rain of Dust

Description on Amazon:

For nearly 90 years, a British company called Cape used local labor to mine and mill asbestos in South Africa. Poor and mostly black men, women, and children―some as young as seven―worked every day in clouds of asbestos dust that they carried home to their families, caked onto their skin, hair, and clothes. The appalling levels of disease and death in these communities caused by asbestos exposure were heartbreaking. In 1995, Richard Meeran, a young British lawyer with Indian and African roots, driven by his own experiences of racism in England, embarked on a David and Goliath battle against the company and its top-tier legal team to hold them accountable.

David Kinley's In a Rain of Dust tells the harrowing story of this international legal drama. Facing deep-pocketed opponents and a century of established legal precedent, Meeran's case before the UK courts seemed hopeless. But after nine years of painstaking investigation, agonizing setbacks, vaudevillian escapades, and unlikely champions, Meeran prevailed. Drawing on dozens of interviews with key players and countless hours poring over thousands of documents across three continents, Kinley reveals an epic tale of triumph and justice against all odds. Marking a significant moment in both legal and human rights history, the book also highlights the profound political implications that victims faced in the newly post-Apartheid South Africa, where the case was widely seen as a test of racial as well as economic redemption.

Asbestos mining in South Africa left a legacy of callous neglect, suffering, and corporate coverups. Working conditions in the country's asbestos mines and mills―described as a never-ending "rain of dust"―persisted for two decades after they had been outlawed in the United Kingdom and the United States. Meeran's case against Cape represented a turning point in making corporations pay for their human rights abuses overseas, and its impact helped launch the global corporate social responsibility movement that continues today.

Scroll up to the audio player to listen to the interview with the author