In a Rain of Dust

An inside story of asbestos, death, and the fight for justice by thousands of South Africans against a multinational mining corporation intent on denying responsibility.

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. He 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.