Whether you are an employee,
contractor or consultant working in the mineral industry, there are pressures to
deliver the best possible performance. Technical professionals are usually
driven by an internal desire to perform to a high standard because of personal
pride in their profession, but there are an increasing number of external
requirements to demonstrate that the actions taken were based upon reasonable
grounds and that the work conformed to current best practice. People expect
these best practice procedures to be followed and governments are now requiring
those tendering for contracts to be registered in some way and to be
participants in quality assurance schemes. One is not immune to these pressures
just because you are working in a less legislatively sophisticated developing
country in the circum-Pacific rim (pacrim) region.

Among the external pressures are
the general ethical requirements of the professional body to which the person
usually belongs, e.g. The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy
(AusIMM), which are further elaborated upon in various Codes and Guidelines on
specific matters, e.g. JORC (ore reserves reports) and VALMIN (assessment and
valuation reports). These are outlined and discussed. Also, AusIMM's Chartered
Practicing Status (CPS) Proposal is outlined in the context of other Pacrim
countries approach to registering of technical professionals, which is a way of
ensuring that minimum standards of qualifications, experience, competence and
repute are demonstrable to ones employer (or client), peers and the wider
community, including government.

Today, in the external working
scene, there are many laws (particularly those applicable to the corporate and
environmental spheres), with which contractors/consultants and even employees
must fully comply, or else face criminal sanctions involving huge fines and
imprisonment. These, too, are outlined and discussed. One must be able to mount
a due diligence defence to avoid or mitigate these consequences.

Personal liability in the context of the day-to-day
performance of one's duties has thus become a major concern to the technical
professional and the ways in which it can be ameliorated, or insured against,
are described. However, for some mineral industry practitioners, the problem is
exacerbated because. of their general ignorance of the extent of their personal
liability exposure. This paper intends to address this ignorance and to heighten
general awareness of personal liability issues, as well as proposing some simple
ways to limit this liability.