The Missing State Department Report on Freeport-McMoRan

Former Wall Street mining analyst John C. Wilson reconstructs this mystery in his new book, Buried in Practice. Drawing on a decade of Freedom of Information Act requests, declassified diplomatic cables, and eyewitness accounts, Wilson argues that the missing report is symptomatic of a systemic failure in corporate and government accountability. As FOIA attorney C. Peter Sorenson notes in the book’s foreword, the legal framework for the investigation is documented, but the actual findings remain absent.

Beyond the specific case of West Papua, the book situates these events within a global pattern of resource development disputes across Asia, Africa, and the Arctic. Wilson examines how security-force violence and environmental degradation often escape scrutiny due to a lack of transparency in government-corporate relationships. To address these structural issues, he advocates for rigorous reforms, including mandatory disclosure of corporate payments to security forces and the potential use of Magnitsky-style targeted sanctions against individuals complicit in human rights violations. Through this lens, the book moves past a single cold case to challenge how international projects are held to account long after the initial development begins.