Language editing in collaboration with Maria Cristina Leone
The headline of the briefing by Business and Human Rights Centre (BHRC) is “Strategic projects for whom? Challenges and local realities of the European Union’s strategic mineral projects”. A few words that might make us doubt once again the true sustainability of recent European policies. And the fairness of the so called “just transition”. The briefing, published in November, focuses on the 13 strategic projects located outside of the EU approved by the UE Commission under the mandate of the Critical Raw Materials Act.
I reached out Caroline Avan, Head of Just Transition and Natural Resources, Business and Human Rights Centre, a global organization working at the intersection of business and human rights.
13 Strategic projects approved under the mandate of EU Critical Raw Materials Act are located outside of the EU. They involve mining and processing and, according to the Commission, they have been assessed in light of their “sustainable implementation”. According to you, are EU able to state these projects are environmentally sustainable? Why?
Our research revealed an inconsistent approach to key human rights policies and potentially serious gaps in local engagement and respect for public participation and meaningful engagement with communities and Indigenous Peoples. The issues are two-fold – lack of transparency over the process followed and lack of evidence that these projects are, in fact, going to be implemented sustainably.
Article 6.1(c) of the CRMA demands that strategic projects “would be implemented sustainably, in particular as regards the monitoring, prevention and minimisation of environmental impacts, the prevention and minimization of socially adverse impacts through the use of socially responsible practices including respect for human rights, indigenous peoples and labour rights, in particular in the case of involuntary resettlement, potential for quality job creation and meaningful engagement with local communities and relevant social partners, and the use of transparent business practices with adequate compliance policies to prevent and minimise risks of adverse impacts on the proper functioning of public administration, including corruption and bribery”.
Annex III further details that projects should be compliant with national regulations and relevant international instruments including the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. However, how these criteria have been assessed in practice in the selection process has remained unclear - as no details have been made available in the Commission’s decisions on strategic projects.
Civil society has already criticised the opaque selection process for the EU strategic projects. Public information about how projects were selected, whether the public was involved, as well as the criteria used in the selection and evaluation processes has been limited or absent. In particular, no information is available on the social, human rights and environmental policies of the project promoters and their assessment by the European Commission.
Our own research, with our partners in civil society, has revealed that none of the promoters of strategic projects outside the EU currently has both a publicly available human rights policy, including on the protection of human rights defenders, and an environmental, human rights and social impact assessment for the proposed project. Our research also evidenced a number of emerging concerns reported by local communities and civil society groups.
Are there any worrying precedents?
Specific risks are human rights abuses have already been raised. For example, in South Africa, the Zandkopsdrift manganese and rare earths project, proposed by Frontier Rare Earths Limited, headquartered in Luxembourg, will operate in the Northern Cape province, which has one of the highest poverty and unemployment rates in the country. Whether Zandkopsdrift will actually benefit local communities is an open question, as longstanding mining operations in the same region have been linked to exacerbation of limited water access and pollution while fielding allegations of lack of meaningful consultation and failures to ensure equitable benefit sharing.
In Madagascar, the Maniry Graphite mine project, proposed by Evion, headquartered in Australia, will take place in one of the poorest districts that also has been the hardest hit by drought in recent years. The project is also reported to likely require the displacement of local communities, but the region’s low literacy rates could hinder the meaningful participation of local communities in the consultation processes unless these are explicitly designed to accommodate such limitations – likely requiring both additional time and resources to support the effort. Experts and activists are worried about a potential mining rush in the country, given weaknesses in the legal framework on environmental and social impact assessments (ESIA) in the country as an operating permit can be granted before the ESIA has been approved.
Can we trust the strategic project promoters when they claim they will respect human rights and the environment?
We need to see evidence of the policies they have adopted to ensure respect for human rights and the environment in their operations. Their plans for community engagement and where applicable, their policies with regards to Indigenous Peoples must also be made public – for the general public to scrutinize and for affected rights-holders to hold them to account.
The Commission claims these projects will bring mutual benefits for the Union and the third countries involved. What do you think about this presumed mutuality?
Under the mandate of the CRMA, the European Commission approved in 2025 60 “strategic” extracting, processing, recycling and substitution projects, which are destined to “meaningfully contribute” to the objectives of the law. Forty-seven projects are to be located within the EU borders and 13 are located outside of the EU; all of the latter involve only mining or processing (four out of 13), raising questions about whether producing countries will benefit from value addition.
You are worried about the compliance of these strategic projects with the Aarhus Convention – the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Convention on access to information, public participation in decision-making and access to justice in environmental matters. Why? Have the projects obtained the full Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) of communities and Indigenous Peoples?
In Norway, the Nussir copper project, proposed by Nussir ASA, to be located on Indigenous Sámi land is reportedly being imposed on local Sámi People without their FPIC. It is expected to affect Sámi communities’ livelihoods by destroying reindeer grazing land and dumping toxic waste in the fjord where they fish.
Adopting corporate human rights policies and due diligence processes is a crucial step to respect human rights. Do the companies involved in the strategic projects have human rights policies?
Very few have publicly available policies. They may have internal policies that we could not review because they are not public – we reached out to all companies explaining our approach. None of the promoters of strategic projects outside the EU currently has both a publicly available human rights policy, including on the protection of human rights defenders, and an environmental, human rights and social impact assessment for the proposed project.
Only one project – the Dumont nickel project in Canada, proposed by Magneto Investments Limited – has a publicly available environmental impact assessment, published in 2015.
Only three projects are associated with companies that have publicly available human rights policies: Société Le Nickel (Eramet), Rio Tinto and Jervois Global.
Only two project promoters (Eramet – parent company of Société Le Nickel and Rio Tinto) are members of multistakeholder initiatives on responsible mining or supporters of relevant industry standards.
What do you think about the EU Omnibus legislation cutting the company due diligence?
The reopening of already agreed, smart legislation for supposed ‘simplification’ soon went off track and led to significant, short-sighted cuts into the substance of laws. In particular, Omnibus I amendments have reduced the scope of companies covered by the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) and Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). Our partners have calculated that the number of EU-based corporate groups falling under the CSDDD went down by around 70%. Also, there is a risk of fragmentation and reduced legal certainty for both companies and affected rightsholders due to the removal of the CSDDD’s EU-wide harmonised civil liability norm.
Yet, despite cutbacks, the CSDDD remains a critical achievement and provides a new tool for affected individuals and communities to pursue corporate accountability. Companies in scope are still required to identify, assess an address risks and harms across their full supply chain, or ‘chain of activities’, prioritising risks according to severity and likelihood. Major EU corporate groups, along with non-EU groups generating sufficient turnover in the EU market, remain covered, including 36 fossil fuel companies, 44 from the energy and utilities sector, and 509 in manufacturing, according to research from SOMO. Legal experts have also pointed out that the removal of ‘climate plans’ as a mandatory stand-alone measure does not exempt companies from due diligence related to climate change.
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