The South African extractives context provides a terrain in which the legal geography of mining has been particularly influential in recent years. In the wake of the Marikana Massacre a decade ago, and amidst a national push to institute a Mining Charter, local sensitivities concerning the ‘the Right to Say No’ as well as the salience of the social license to operate characterize the current moment in South Africa’s long relationship with its minerals-Industrial complex. The Fuleni/Somkhele and Xolobeni cases provide fertile ground to explore the interaction of these elements. Both are seized with high profile, likely precedent setting legal proceedings that are likely shape the future of both areas and beyond, and much is at stake for Community based Organisations, NGOs and mining houses alike, and not least their local environments. This session involves presentations and reflections from individuals involved in anti-extractivist struggles in these two areas, as well as from the lawyers that represent them. We hope to focus on the comparative legal terrain and its lessons for the role of ‘lawfare’ in the the South African extractives sector more broadly.