MiningWatch Canada makes a submission to the UN Special Rapporteur on Climate Change, to inform the rapporteur’s upcoming report on “Human Rights in the Life Cycle of Renewable Energy and Critical Minerals.”
This submission highlights several examples of human rights violations linked to mining for critical minerals, from initial claims staking to exploration, exploitation, and recycling. While our focus is on mining in Canada and the activities of Canadian mining companies abroad, these violations are common globally.
The brief highlights how the manner in which the metal-intensive energy transition is advancing is fundamentally at odds with respect for global human rights. The critical minerals rush is rapidly encroaching on sensitive environments, imposing on Indigenous territories without consent, further endangering the lives of human rights and environmental defenders, and violating basic rights to health, clean air and water, and safety and security for local communities. In the absence of rigorous regulatory frameworks, including binding legislation to hold Canadian companies accountable for abuse, we expect these violations to intensify. Instead, communities across the world are advocating for a just energy transition – one that takes into account mining for who, for what purpose, and above all, who is paying the cost.
We conclude with several key recommendations for Canada and for Canadian companies, including recommendations related to upholding Indigenous rights to consent, passing binding legislation to hold Canadian companies accountable, ensuring mining-affected communities have greater powers to protect land from a speculative mining boom currently underway, banning deep sea mining, and several more.