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forced labor
The Path Toward a More Just and Sustainable Mineral Supply Chain
What’s needed to make the Minerals Security Partnership work on the ground
Sep 15, 2024
Azure waters and exotic islands are not the only attractions of Cabo Delgado in Mozambique. The province is home to the largest graphite reserve globally, prompting Syrah Resources’ Twigg to open the Balama mine. This is one of the dozen projects across the world chosen by the Minerals Security Partnership to secure and diversify the supply of raw materials.
The energy transition is dependent on critical minerals such as lithium and copper as the world electrifies transport and shifts to renewables. With most minerals currently controlled by China, many western countries are playing catch up. The Minerals Security Partnership (MSP), whose members include Australia, Canada, India, the U.S. and many European countries, is central to this effort.
History is full of not-so-pretty attempts by western nations to capture minerals supply chains, as many living in the Global South know first hand. So how can this partnership offer a truly different value proposition centered on sustainability and deliver truly responsible projects?
Strong transparent standards
Despite some effort, the current situation in the extractive industries is far from adequate. A recent report by the International Energy Agency notes that while governance in the minerals sector has somewhat improved, progress on water and greenhouse gas emissions is at best stagnating. (Add to this a deeply felt mistrust among communities and companies and you quickly realize how complicated the matters are.)
But it does not have to be this way. Most technologies for safer tailings management or better water treatment, rules for robust anti-corruption and human rights due diligence, and practices to engage communities and co-govern with Indigenous peoples all exist. They just need to be applied and upheld consistently. This is where the new minerals partnership can bring real value.
Yet right now the MSP principles lack any such concrete requirements. That’s a big omission. For example in the case of Cabo Delgado, concerns around involuntary resettlement of nearby communities and local value proposition abide. MSP-supported projects like this one will be judged as much by the volumes of critical minerals they supply as by their environmental and social stewardship.
The good news is that the MSP does not have to reinvent the wheel. The answer lies in applying the human right and environmental due diligence practices as stipulated in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) guidelines. The EU has recently done exactly that in its new battery law. This will require tracing, addressing and mitigating all manner of social and environmental risks, alongside upholding global treaties such as on Free, Prior and Informed Consent.
Any global miner, refiner, or recycler whose cobalt, graphite, lithium, and nickel are found in batteries on the European market will already have to track and mitigate all manner of social and environmental risks from 2026, including forced labor, water pollution, and biodiversity. MSP member countries can simply uplift these provisions into the partnership projects.
From rhetoric to action on the ground
Setting strong and transparent standards is the first step. These need to also be implemented so that they bring difference on the ground.
This means that the minerals partnership needs to quickly move from vision to a pipeline of responsible projects on the ground. So the focus should be on coordinating with local governments to bring local value and infrastructure, on engaging local communities to have a social license to operate and on bringing in finance instructions to make the projects happen.
Given how far ahead China is, there is no time to waste. A laser sharp focus to scale responsibly managed projects across the world is necessary to build a more diverse supply chain. But this should also come with better environmental stewardship and advancing the rights and livelihoods of those impacted, breaking from past behavior.
The Minerals Security Partnership shows global governments are waking up to the challenge of securing critical minerals responsibly. But whether projects like the Balama mine will become largest suppliers of quality graphite and raise the local community out of poverty will depend on how quickly responsible mining practices are scaled up on the ground.
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200+ Groups Implore COP28 Nations to Address UAE's Human Rights and Climate Abuses
"Allowing COP28 to be held by the rulers of a repressive petrostate, and overseen by an oil executive, is reckless, represents a blatant conflict of interest, and threatens the legitimacy of the whole process."
Sep 13, 2023
More than 200 civil society organizations from around the world on Wednesday urged leaders of countries participating in this autumn's United Nations Climate Change Conference—popularly known as COP28—to address host nation United Arab Emirates' "human rights record and destructive policies on climate change."
"We support the concerns expressed by climate justice movements that allowing COP28 to be held by the rulers of a repressive petrostate, and overseen by an oil executive, is reckless, represents a blatant conflict of interest, and threatens the legitimacy of the whole process," the groups wrote in a letter, referring to Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber, the CEO of the United Arab Emirates' state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC)—one of the world's largest fossil fuel firms.
Earlier this year, one European Union lawmaker likened al-Jaber's COP28 presidency to "having a tobacco multinational overseeing the internal work of the World Health Organization."
The groups' letter continues:
Climate justice and human rights are deeply interconnected—there cannot be one without the other. As COP28 delegates prepare to attend the talks in Dubai, it is crucial for the international community to use the opportunity to shine a spotlight on the UAE's human rights record, and to stand in solidarity with communities on the frontlines working to stop climate change impacts and human rights violations in the UAE and across the world.
The signatories called on the world leaders to:
- Demand that the UAE not spy on COP28 attendees and end unlawful surveillance that violates international human rights law;
- Call on the UAE to release all prisoners of conscience;
- Demand action on violations of women's rights;
- Condemn violations of LGBTQ+ rights;
- Call for workers' rights reforms and reparation for forced labor;
- Urge the UAE to stop supporting human rights violators in Yemen and across the Middle East and North Africa; and
- Publicly repudiate UAE greenwashing and fossil fuel hypocrisy.
"In addition, we urge all nations to make meaningful and ambitious commitments at COP28, with rich countries taking responsibility for their historical emissions and leading the way with commitments in line with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities and principles of equity," the letter asserts.
"COP28 must produce a global commitment to phase out all fossil fuels and fossil fuel subsidies at the speed needed to keep global average temperature increases below 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels," the signers added.
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Wyden Asks US Corporation About Possible Ties to Amazon Deforestation, Forced Labor
As part of his ongoing effort to rid auto supply chains of human rights and environmental abuses, the Oregon Democrat wants leather car seat manufacturer Lear to explain its sourcing practices.
Jul 25, 2023
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden on Monday asked the Lear Corporation, the world's largest manufacturer of leather car seats, to answer questions about its transnational supply chain, which has "potential links" to illegal deforestation and forced labor in the Brazilian Amazon.
In his letter to Lear CEO Ray Scott, Wyden (D-Ore.), chair of the Senate Finance Committee, said the information he is seeking will aid the panel's ongoing probe of the effectiveness of current policies aimed at combating human rights and environmental abuses in the supply chains of products sold in the United States.
"Lear sources 70% of its leather supply from Brazil," Wyden wrote, citing a recent report from the Environmental Investigation Agency, a U.S.-based nonprofit. "There, Lear predominantly does business with JBS S.A., Vancouros Comercio de Couros LTDA, and Viposa S.A., hide producers known to source cattle from areas of the Amazon that have been illegally used for cattle production and which receive weak oversight from the Brazilian government."
"A 2021 New York Times exposé revealed that Lear's major direct suppliers each source cattle from illegally deforested ranches in protected areas of the Amazon," Wyden continued. "These ranches evade supply chain monitoring by moving cattle repeatedly over their lifetimes from illegal to legal ranches in a process known as 'cattle laundering.' In addition to encouraging deforestation, illegal ranching in the Amazon drives violent land grabs and human rights abuses subject to weak oversight by Brazilian law enforcement, which often fails to enforce environmental and human rights laws."
According to Wyden: "Such abuses include the prevalent use of slave labor to deforest ranching areas. Since 1995, more than 1,300 laborers have been discovered working in slavery conditions to clear forest, and this number is likely a significant underestimate due to laborers' fears of retaliation, including murder. In 2022, the United States Department of Labor Bureau of International Affairs listed cattle as one of the products Brazil is producing by forced labor or child labor."
Over the past two years, Wyden has been investigating the relationship between cattle ranching and deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon.
"This investigation is focused on the business practices of JBS S.A., which has allowed illegal deforestation to enter its cattle supply chain through indirect suppliers who engage in cattle laundering," the senator explained. "By complicating their supply chains, JBS's indirect suppliers are able to source cattle from ranches that engage in illegal land occupation and deforestation. In June 2023, the Finance Committee held a hearing on this investigation and pushed multinational beef producer JBS to stop turning a blind eye as parts of its supply chains burn down the Amazon, push the world toward climate catastrophe, and undercut American ranchers who play by the rules on international trade."
The reports and articles Wyden cited in his letter were published in 2022 and earlier, when Brazil was governed by Jair Bolsonaro. Illegal deforestation soared under the far-right former president, who turned a blind eye to the violence that logging, mining, and agribusiness companies used to repress environmental defenders.
Deforestation has fallen since leftist Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took office in January and quickly restored efforts to crack down on clear-cutting and resumed the formal recognition of Indigenous lands, which has been shown to improve forest outcomes.
However, Lula still faces immense challenges, including strong opposition from corporate interests and right-wing Brazilian lawmakers. In addition, Bolsonaro's funding cuts weakened monitoring and enforcement to such a degree that organized crime groups are now deeply entrenched in the Amazon.
In the U.S., Section 307 of the Tariff Act of 1930 prohibits the importation of goods produced using forced labor. In 2016, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol's authority to prevent forced labor from entering the nation's supply chains was strengthened when Wyden worked with Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) to pass an amendment to the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act.
Alluding to that legislation, Wyden asked Lear to answer a series of questions about its leather supply chains so that the Senate Finance Committee can better evaluate existing attempts to curb forced labor, including:
- Does Lear conduct its own leather supply chain mapping and analysis of cattle production, beginning at birth and following transportation to all facilities at which the cow is held, through slaughter, processing, and finishing to determine whether any aspect of the supply chain is linked to forced labor?
- Does Lear conduct analysis to determine whether its suppliers source cattle from ranches that were illegally occupied at the time of their transaction under Brazilian environmental laws, or from ranches that received amnesty grants following illegal occupation?
- Does Lear require suppliers to perform due diligence analysis of their own sourcing to detect forced labor in their own supply chains? If so, how does Lear evaluate the validity of suppliers' due diligence methodology?
Wyden asked the Michigan-headquartered company to provide the requested information by August 7 at the latest.
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