The lawyers for the plaintiffs in the Hudbay case, Murray Klippenstein and Cory Wanless, took a novel approach, however, making a simpler claim. They said the Canadian parent company was negligent for failing to put an effective monitoring system in place to understand what its Guatemalan subsidiary was doing. Framing the claim in this way allowed the plaintiffs to draw a clear connection between the negligence and Canada.

In addition to the claims brought by Mrs. Caal and the other women who say they were raped in Lote Ocho, Hudbay, based in Toronto, is facing claims over the death of a prominent local leader, Adolfo Ich Chamán, 50, and the shooting and paralysis of a bystander, German Chub, 28, during demonstrations against mining in the nearby town of El Estor in 2009.

Hudbay lawyers moved to have the case dismissed both because of jurisdictional grounds and because it was “plain and obvious” that the claims would fail. Before the ruling on jurisdiction, they dropped that claim and went forward with the other one. In July 2013, however, the judge ruled it was not obvious that the claims were without merit.

Turning to the courts has not been easy for the plaintiffs, most of whom speak only Q’eqchi’, a Mayan language, have had little or no schooling, and find the prospect of going to Canada terrifying. In addition, they face animosity from a sizable portion of the local population, particularly in El Estor, where there is a giant nickel processing plant.