Civil Society Recommendations for the United Nations Secretary-General’s Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals

Principles to Ensure Energy Transition Minerals Advance Justice, Equity and Human Rights

Available in English, French, Spanish

“One principle shines from the heart of this initiative – and that principle is justice. Justice for the communities where critical minerals are found… Justice for developing countries in production and trade; and justice in the global energy revolution.”

António Guterres, United Nations Secretary General

Launch of the Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals, April 26, 2024

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Please fill in this form to publicly endorse the recommendations.

These recommendations have been jointly developed by the SIRGE Coalition, Earthworks, Climate Action Network, Natural Resource Governance Institute, Publish What You Pay, the EU Raw Materials Coalition and Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, incorporating feedback from over 40 organizations.

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Background

The world urgently needs a just and rapid phase out of fossil fuels and a transition to a 100% renewable, zero-carbon global energy system. There is no justification for delay.

The idea that we have to prioritize either fighting climate change or upholding human rights, however, is a false choice. Climate change commitments will only be realized when human rights, equity, and inclusion are at the heart of climate policies.

The launch of the UN Secretary-General’s Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals is an opportunity to develop global principles to ensure that supplying the minerals needed to phase out fossil fuels advances justice, equity, and human rights.

There is growing recognition that over-consumption of the world’s scarce resources has driven the intersecting planetary crisis we face – climate change, biodiversity loss and deep inequality. Delivering on climate commitments implies first and foremost a deep, rapid, and just reduction of energy consumption and materials and minerals demand in developed countries. Policies to curb high consumption in developed countries and advance prosperity in developing countries are critical to drive a just transition, but the rapid rollout of renewable energy technologies and transport electrification is still likely to increase demand for, and new extraction of, minerals.

The extraction of minerals has longstanding links to human rights abuses, environmental destruction, corruption, and violence against rights defenders and communities. Governments and companies too often pursue a growth-at-all-costs, extractivist model that worsens global inequalities while concentrating harm in frontline communities. Indigenous Peoples – whose lands hold half of the world’s transition minerals – are most at risk. Transition mineral value chains, from extraction to final products end-of-life processes, are also currently carbon intensive. Effective climate mitigation can only be achieved when we fundamentally change the way we use resources and transition to a truly circular and just economy beyond growth. It is the only way through which we can ensure future generations can enjoy their right to a stable climate and resource wealth. 

To contribute to a just and equitable transition, those who extract and process minerals must respect the rights of Indigenous Peoples, communities, and workers; protect water, biodiversity, and ecosystems across the world; and ensure producer countries and communities retain more of the value of resource development and see drastic increases in access to energy and fulfillment of all economic and social rights. The voices of communities impacted by extraction, Indigenous leaders, women, and those with limited access to energy should be at the heart of these policies, including about whether and on what terms extraction should proceed. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has recognized that inclusive and human rights-based approaches lead to more effective climate action. 

Indigenous Peoples’ right to self-determination, as enshrined in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), must be recognized and upheld in all aspects of mineral extraction and processing. This includes ensuring that self-determination is understood as a land, sovereignty and economic issue, allowing Indigenous Peoples to govern their lands, territories, and economic priorities and development. Self-determination is not merely a concept but a practical right that must be supported through concrete actions and robust enforcement.

Governments need to take action to design and enforce policies that prioritize justice, inequality reduction and participation and that are binding, since experience demonstrates that voluntary approaches remain largely inadequate.

To help guide the UN Secretary-General’s Panel, our organizations, which bring together more than 230 Indigenous Peoples groups, unions and labor activists, and climate, environmental justice, child rights and human rights organizations, have developed recommendations describing how a transformative approach to transition minerals can contribute to a more just global energy system.

Principles to Ensure Energy Transition Minerals Advance Justice, Equity and Human Rights

1. Reduce Demand Equitably

1.1: Governments, especially in developed countries, should reduce energy and material use, in alignment with limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2030, to reduce overconsumption of transition minerals and enable equitable, efficient, and sufficient energy for all. They should ensure the overuse of energy does not come at the expense of a continued lack of access to energy in developing countries. Governments should support the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of affordable, reliable and sustainable and modern energy for all. When measuring GHG emissions to inform decision-making, governments should ensure the whole lifecycle of goods consumed in their countries is taken into account, and not only their end uses. 

1.2: Governments, especially in developed countries, should reduce mineral demand from the transportation sector through policies enabling systemic shifts towards deployment of electrified public transit and removal of barriers to access public transit; investments in urban planning processes that involve communities and that support walking, bicycling, and ride sharing; and smaller private vehicle and battery size.

1.3: Governments should promote and ensure effective implementation, including through regulation, of responsible use practices such as: increased circularity by redesigning systems and products to increase their lifecycle and enable the highest and best use of materials; requiring modularity, standardization, and ease of disassembly; promoting robust access to information for repairability, reuse, repurposing; and requiring appropriate recycling. Governments in developed countries should ensure their policies do not lead to industrial waste from processing facilities and technology rendered outdated being discarded uncontrollably in developing countries. 

2. Protect People and the Planet

2.1: Governments and companies should protect and respect Indigenous Peoples’ right to self-determination and to Free, Prior, and Informed Consent prior to and during minerals licensing, extraction and processing, in full alignment with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and International Labour Organization Convention 169 (Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention).

2.2: Governments should develop a robust framework to identify, evaluate, prevent and, or mitigate specific impacts on Indigenous Peoples’ territories if and where such extracting and processing projects take place and ensure Indigenous Peoples have access to this information before mining takes place. Financial institutions should adopt policies to scope for and report on the Indigenous Rights Risk of the companies they finance and in their own investments.

2.3: Governments and companies should ensure all communities and rightsholders enjoy the right to access relevant information and to participate in decisions affecting them in a safe, culturally and age appropriate and inclusive manner ensuring diverse and gender-balanced representation, through the full life cycle of projects, including in decisions on licensing and permitting new mining and processing operations, emergency response and preparedness, decommissioning, closure, and repurposing of existing sites. Governments should also ensure all citizens’ right to participate in policy making in the transition mineral sector. 

2.4: Governments should negotiate, ratify and enforce binding treaties and national laws and regulations obliging companies to respect human rights, Indigenous Peoples’ rights and labor rights across their whole value chain through the conduct of human rights and environmental due diligence and meaningful access to remedy for affected rightsholders.

2.5: Governments and companies should ensure that Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and workers in the formal and informal sectors have access to timely remedies and legal assistance where they are harmed by minerals extraction or processing, both through effective transparent state-based non-judicial and judicial processes and company grievance mechanisms, including through cross border cooperation when remedies in the host state are not accessible or ineffective.

2.6: Governments should ensure that companies extracting and processing minerals uphold the strongest international human rights, Indigenous Peoples’ rights, environmental and governance standards in their own operations and those of their affiliated companies, including through rigorous environmental, social and human rights impact assessments, based on best available technology and practice, human rights and environmental due diligence, and risk-based anti-corruption integrity measures. 

2.7: Governments and companies should promote and advance gender equality in the mining sector, including promoting women’s participation in decision-making processes, addressing gender-based violence, and ensuring equitable access to benefits and resources.

2.8: Governments and companies should prohibit and avoid any mineral exploration or development in protected conservation areas and other locations of high biodiversity, conservation, and cultural heritage values, as well as high-value carbon sinks, and apply the precautionary principle to support effective environmental protection measures.

2.9: Governments and companies should minimize and be transparent about GHG emissions from minerals extraction and processing, including by rapidly eliminating the use of fossil fuels for energy, ensuring zero deforestation, and favoring extraction and processing methods with the lowest emissions intensity.

2.10: Government and companies should end criminalization of environmental and human rights defenders and recognize and commit to protecting their rights and legitimacy by adopting and disclosing relevant policies to protect them from attacks, assassination, extrajudicial killings, violence, harassment, including through the form of strategic litigation against public participation (SLAPP), and repression, and provide effective reparation. Government and companies should protect and respect civic space and media freedom.

3. Support Equitable Development and Tax Policies

3.1: Governments of developed countries and international financial institutions should provide developing countries that produce transition minerals with adequate financing, in the form of grants, technical assistance and technology transfers necessary to responsibly maximize the value they capture from mineral extraction and processing and promote domestic production and use of renewable energy technologies.

3.2: Governments should enact, and international financial institutions promote, fiscal regimes and fiscal administration reforms that balance reliability and flexibility, and minimize tax avoidance risks, including by requiring the use of transparent pricing mechanisms such as benchmark prices where feasible, avoiding tax holidays and withholding tax relief, and limiting the scope and duration of stability clauses.

3.3: Governments, especially in producer countries, should ensure that the tax revenue generated by minerals extraction, processing, and transformation promotes sustainable and equitable development and generates tangible benefits for all citizens, and particularly Indigenous Peoples, local communities affected by mining, youth and children and women. 

3.4 Governments should support an ambitious United Nations Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation global tax reform process to avoid tax evasion, abusive transfer pricing and other forms of tax avoidance in international operations, such as double tax agreements, and which improves information sharing across borders.

3.5: Governments should enact regulations and incentives which favor business models that deliver shared prosperity, throughout generations, through participatory governance, such as community full or co-ownership or co-management, supported by just fiscal terms, offering seats at the table for those affected by mining projects, including women, gender diverse and Indigenous Peoples, and artisanal and small-scale miners.

3.6: Governments should enact policies that promote the inclusion of local content requirements in mineral extraction projects, ensuring that local communities benefit from employment opportunities, skills development, and business opportunities related to the mining sector. Local content policies should be implemented in a way that ensures benefits are equitably distributed and free from corruption.

3.7: Governments should, through robust access to information legislation and policies, ensure transparency over revenue generated by minerals extraction, processing, and trading, including by requiring governments and companies to disclose licenses, contracts, partnership agreements, trade and investment agreements, beneficial ownership information, production, sales and processing volumes, costs, cost auditing information, project-level payments-to-governments, project economics and country-by-country tax reporting.

3.8: Governments and companies should establish risk-based policies that pursue zero tolerance for corruption in mining and mineral processing and trading, including in the award of licenses, permits and approvals, procurement and supplier contracts, commodity sales and trading, and governments should enhance institutional capacities to investigate and prosecute individuals and companies implicated in corruption.

4. Promote Equitable International Trade and Investment

4.1: Governments should reform international investment and trade frameworks to encourage a race to the top in governance, social, and environmental standards and allow countries to add value to minerals extracted from their territory. Resource-rich countries should have the ability to manage their mineral exports in alignment with their national development strategies and to experiment with the different policy tools at their disposal in a transparent, responsible, inclusive, and democratically accountable manner. 

4.2: Governments should withdraw from or terminate existing agreements that provide for investor-state dispute settlements (ISDS), remove ISDS-related clauses from existing agreements, and find mutually beneficial agreements that do not threaten the sovereignty of countries and their ability to strengthen domestic legal systems and human rights and environmental policies, while ensuring disputes can be resolved in a transparent and stable manner.

4.3: Governments should cancel and restructure debt for low and middle-income countries, as needed, to remove the debt-traps which prevent minerals contributing to producer countries’ sustainable development and create more fiscal space to support domestic industrialization and economic diversification. Governments should heavily scrutinize any minerals barter agreements, resource-backed loans, and other minerals agreements with a view towards ensuring public and local benefits.

5. Ensure Strong United Nations Action on Transition Minerals

5.1: Governments should build on multilaterally and equitably agreed voluntary standards and principles, including those to be issued by the United Nations Secretary-General Panel, through binding treaties and national laws and regulations that require governments and companies to respect human rights, Indigenous Peoples’ rights, protect the environment, and adhere to good governance best practices, with the view that only binding frameworks can lead to change.

5.2: The United Nations Secretary-General should establish a United Nations mechanism, based on an inclusive and participatory approach that ensures access for affected local communities and Indigenous Peoples, tasked with monitoring, investigating, and addressing complaints on human rights, Indigenous Peoples’ rights, environment, or governance related to the extraction and processing of minerals.

5.3: The United Nations Secretary-General should task and resource a multistakeholder working group, including direct participation of Indigenous Peoples, labor unions, local communities hosting transition minerals mining, women, and civil society groups, to oversee an implementation plan to follow up on the recommendations of the Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals, including through an annual meeting to track progress on implementation.

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Signatory organisations:

11.11.11Belgium
AbibiNsroma FoundationGhana
AboveskyeNigeria
ActionAid InternationalInternational
ACTIONS FOR DEMOCRACY AND LOCAL GOVERNANCE (ADLG)Tanzania
ADIICameroun
Advocates for Health and Development InitiativeNigeria
African Centre for Leadership, Strategy & Development (Centre LSD)Nigeria
African Coalition on Green Growth(ACGG)Africa
African Women’s Development and Communication Network FEMNETAfrica region
AIDAEcuador
Aide, Assistance et Développement Communautaire de Côte d’Ivoire (ADC-CI)Côte d’Ivoire
Akina Mama wa AfrikaUganda
Albanian Center for Development and IntegrationAlbania
Aminci Centre for Social Advocacy and Development initiative CSANigeria
Amnesty InternationalUK
Anti corruption revolutionNigeria
ASADHODR Congo
Association Guinéenne pour la TransparenceGuinée
Aube Nouvelle pour la Femme et le Développement ANFD non-profit NGODR Congo
Bantay Kita – Publish What You Pay PhilippinesPhilippines
Batani FoundationRussia/USA
DUKINGIRE ISI YACU (DIY)Burundi
Business and Human Rights Resource CentreUK
CAFAGB Cellule Associative des Femmes Actives pour la Gouvernance les Droits Humains et le Bien êtreCameroun
Cafe Sitia limitedUganda
cambiaMO | changing MObilitySpain
Center For Rural Economic Social Development CREESODNigeria
CAN AfricaMorocco
Care for the elderly intellectuals PUAzerbaijan
CARE FOR THE PHYSICALLY CHALLENGED AND DESTITUTE FOUNDATION (CAPCADF)Nigeria
Caritas EuropaBelgium
Center for Environment Peace and Youth Development (CEPYOD)Nigeria
Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL)United States
Center for Peace Education and Community DevelopmentNigeria
Center For Rural Economic &Social Development ( CREESOD)Nigeria
Center for Transnational Environmental AccountabilityUSA
Centre for Human Rights and Climate Change ResearchNigeria
Centre for Human Rights and DevelopmentMongolia
Centre for Sustainability PHPhilippines
Centre for Transparency AdvocacyNigeria
Christian AidUnited Kingdom
Christian Foundation for Social Justice and Equity (CFSJE)Nigeria
Community Development InitiativeNigeria
Citizens Centre for Integrated Development and Social RightsNigeria
Civil expertiseKazakhstan
Climate Action Network – International (CAN-I)International
Climate Action Network (CAN) ZambiaZambia
Climate Action Network CanadaCanada
Climate Action Network Southeast Asia (CANSEA)Malaysia
Climate GenerationUnited States
Climate Justice ProgrammeAustralia
Climate Rights InternationalUnited States
Comissão de Atingidos por Barragem de Vila Regência e Entre Rios.Brasil
Community Development InitiativeNigeria
Community information and advocacy initiativesNigeria
Community Outreach for Development and Welfare Advocacy (CODWA)Nigeria
Company of the Daughters of Charity of Saint Vincent de PaulUSA
Courageous people health and development initiativeNigeria
Fair Habitat Foundation’Nigeria
Cultural Survival Inc.United States of America
Democracy Monitor Public UnionAzerbaijan
Development Watch NetworkNigeria
Disability Not A Barrier InitiativeNigeria
DISABILITY PEOLES FORUM UGANDAUganda
Divine Era Development and Social Rights Initiative (DEDASRI)Nigeria
DiXi GroupUkraine
EarthworksUnited States
Echo Public AssociationKazakhstan
ECOSBelgium
Edmund Rice InternationalUSA
Endorois Indigenous Women Empowerment Network (EIWEN)Kenya
Enemas Resources FoundationNigeria
Equal RightUK
Equality BahamasThe Bahamas
European environmental bureauBelgium
Fair Finance InternationalNetherlands
Fair Habitat Foundation’Nigeria
Fast For the ClimateCanada
Femmes Bladi pour le développement et le TourismeMorocco
First Food For Family Initiative (FIFFA)Nigeria
Foundation For Environmental Rights,Advocacy & Development (FENRADNigeria
Friends of the Earth EuropeBelgium
FTAOBelgium
Fundación Foro Nacional por Colombia, Capítulo Foro Región CentralColombia
Fundación Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (FARN)Argentina
Fundación TerramChile
GAIAUnited States
GDMR- Grupo Para o Desenvolvimento da Mulher e RaparigaMozambique
GDTPWYP-MOROCCOMorocco
Gen-Z Movement Support TeamMyanmar
Gender inclusive and development advocacyNigeria
Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural RightsMéxico
Global Justice NowUnited Kingdom
Global Media FoundationGhana
Global Organization For Youth Enlightment And DevelopmentNigeria
Global WitnessBelgium
Goa FoundationIndia
Governance and Economic Policy CenterTanzania/ Kenya
Governance LinksTanzania
Grandmothers Advocacy NetworkCanada
Green Concern for Development (GREENCODE)Nigeria
Neighbourhood Environment Watch ( NEW) FoundationNigeria
GreenpeaceGlobal
Neighbourhood Environment Watch Foundation.Nigeria
Human Power OrganisationMalawi
Human Power OrganisationMalawi
Groupe d’Action Francophone pour l’EnvironnementHaïti
Groupe de Recherche et d’Action pour le Développement Minier RésponsableSénégal
Groupe de Réflexion et d’Initiative pour l’Avancement de la Grand’Anse (GRIAG)Haiti
Grp Agir pour Garantir la GouvernanceEconomique etSociale
HawkmothThe Netherlands
Heinrich-Böll FoundationGermany
Human Power OrganisationMalawi
OxfamUnited States
Human Rights and Grassroots Development SocietyNigeria
Igbehinadun Agroforestry (I.A)Nigeria
IMPACTCanada
Initiative for Collective Development EffortsNigeria
Institute Internationa of Education of BrazilBrasil
Instituto EscolhasBrasil
Jamaa Resource Initiatives, KenyaKenya
Jeunes Volontaires pour l’EnvironnementTogo
JOURNALISTS FOR HUMAN RIGHTSNorth Macedonia
Kiferu youth and community development initiative Bauchi state of NigeriaNigeria
Knowledge and Community Development Awareness Initiative (KCOMAI)Nigeria
Kogi Research SupportNigeria
KORAMA COMMUNITY EMPOWERMENTNigerian
Koyenum Immalah Foundation KIFNigeria
Les enjeux de l’insecticide sur la biodiversitéCanada
London Mining NetworkUnited Kingdom
MAKERERE WATER PROJECTUganda
Malach ConsultingUSA
Maryknoll Fathers and BrothersUSA
Mater Natura – Instituto de Estudos AmbientaisBrasil
MenaFem Movement for Economic Development and Ecological JusticeMorocco
Mercy International Association – Global ActionUnited States
Millennium Development Centre GusauNigeria
Mineral Inheritors Rights AssociationIndia
MiningWatch CanadaCanada
Motherhen Development FoundationNigeria
Natural JusticeSouth Africa
Natural Resource Governance InstituteNigeria
Neighbourhood Environment Watch FoundationNigeria
NGO Consortium for promotion of EITI in KyrgyzstanKyrgyzstan
Niger Delta Study Group on Extractive SectorNigeria
Nigeria environmental (society Kano chapter)rNigeria
Northern Confluence InitiativeCanada
Nyika Institute and Chair PWYP MalawiMalawi
Observatoire d’etudes et d’appui a la responsabilite sociale et environnementale ( OEARSE )DR Congo
Transparency And Economic Development InitiativesNigeria
Observatório do ClimaBrazil
ODRI – Office against discrimination, racism and intoleranceGermany
OearseRepublique democratique du congo
Organisation Tchadienne Anti-corruption (OTAC)Tchad
Oxfam DRCRD Congo
OxfamUnited States
Oxfam SenegalSenegal
Paradigm Leadership Support InitiativeNigeria
Passionists InternationalUnited States
PCQVP MelakyMadagascar
Population CouncilIndia
PowerShiftGermany
Public Administration New Initiative NGOMongolia
Public CitizenUSA
Public Foundation Nash VekKyrgyzstan
Public Service of Ukraine, Poltava Branch.Ukraine
Publish What You Pay NigeriaNigeria
Publish What You Pay AustraliaAustralia
Publish What You Pay IndonesiaIndonesia
Publish What You Pay InternationalGlobal
Publish What You Pay MadagascarMadagascar
Publish What You Pay UgandaUganda
Québec Meilleure mineCanada
Rainforest Foundation NorwayNorway
Razom we standUkraine
Reacción ClimáticaBolivia
RecourseInternational
Rede Vozes Negras pelo ClimaBrasil
Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary NGOUSA
Southern Africa Region Climate Action Network (SARCAN)Southern Africa Region
Réseau de Lutte contre la Faim (RELUFA)Cameroun
Resource MattersBelgium and DRC
Rights and Accountability in Development (RAID)UK
ROTAB NigerNiger
Rural Initiative for ChangeNigeria
Sahar Initiative for Sustainable Development and Support, Bauchi StateNigeria
Satya BumiIndonesia
Servicios Ecumenicos para Reconciliacion Reconstruccion – SERR ReconstruccionUnited States
SETEM CatalunyaSpain
Sinatsisa Lubombo Women and girls Empowerment organizationEswatini
SIRGE CoalitionBelgium
Sociedad Amigos del VientoUruguay
Society for International Development (I’m signing on an individual capacity)Philippines
Society for Threatened PeoplesSwitzerland
SOMO
Southern Africa Region Climate Action Network (SARCAN)Zimbabwe
Stand up for your environment foundationNigeria
STOP-SAHELMali
Sukaar Welfare OrganizationPakistan
Tea Longo Ho SoaMadagascar
Temple of UnderstandingUSA
THE CENTER OF INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW & HUMAN RIGHTSYemen
The Future We NeedIndia
The Integrated Social Development CentreGhana
The NGO of “To healthy life”Azerbaijann
The Trust and support foundationNigeria
Transparency And Economic Development InitiativesNigeria
Transparency International AustraliaAustralia
Transparency International MadagascarMadagascar
TrócaireIreland
Uma Gota no OceanoBrazil
Union of Concerned ScientistsUSA
United action for democracy (UAD)Nigeria
Universidad Externado de ColombiaColombia
Village Farmers Initiative (VFI)Nigeria
Viração EducomunicaçãoBrazil
VIVAT InternationalUnited States
VWA FANM AYISYÈN (VFA)Haiti
WECF InternationalGermany
Women, Infants and Children Care InitiativeNigeria
Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN)USA
Women’s International League for Peace and FreedomGermany
Women’s Organisation for Dev and Empowerment of CommunitiesNigeria
World Christian Life CommunityUSA
Yobe Voice and Accountability MechanismNigeria
“Young Leaders” Education-Training and Development Publc UnionAzerbaijan
Youth and Women for Change in EswatiniEswatini
ZABIYA RUTH FOUNDATIONNigeria
Zukunftsrat HamburgGermany

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Download file: http://ENG-UN-CETM-Civil-Society-Letter.pdf

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