This unfolds alongside growing restrictions on civic space in countries with significant reserves of transition minerals – primarily in the Global South – and ongoing attacks on human rights defenders, including Indigenous Peoples and environmental and land defenders from communities affected by these projects. People who try to participate in decision making about business projects which affect their rights or raise legitimate concerns about environmental impacts, human rights risks or inequitable decision-making around transition minerals mining projects are too often portrayed as barriers to development, rather than as essential participants in shaping the energy transition.

Governments have a central role to play in rectifying this situation, and a duty to do so. Four fifths of investment in transition mineral mining currently comes from public finance institutions in the US, Australia, the UK, Japan and Brazil. These countries, together with the European Union and notably its members Germany, France and Italy, are currently also among the most active in the pursuit of strategic critical minerals partnerships across Africa, Latin America, Eastern Europe and Asia, as evident in the creation of the G7 Critical Minerals Resilience and Production Alliance. Many of these countries have traditionally positioned themselves both as driving climate action and as champions of democracy and human rights – but the majority of these new partnership agreements and related investments currently lack any meaningful safeguards for communities or ecosystems.

In practice, an intensifying geopolitical race is driving accelerated extraction of transition minerals, while growing demand for those minerals is, in turn, intensifying geopolitical competition. Governments' urgency to secure mineral supplies is resulting in fast-track permitting and lack of meaningful engagement, and is taking precedence over good governance, transparency and states’ duty to protect human rights. This exposes a significant inconsistency: governments which advocate for democracy and human rights are not translating those commitments into the governance of the mineral supply chains underpinning their climate and other ambitions – and neither are these being sufficiently upheld by governments in minerals' producing countries.

This pattern is disproportionately impacting Indigenous Peoples, on or near whose land 54% of transition mineral deposits are located – a situation aggravated by non-recognition and systematic violations of their rights by many producing states, along with failure to prioritise respect for the human rights and collective rights of Indigenous Peoples and expect the same from companies headquartered in their jurisdictions.

This approach to mining creates a ticking time bomb which threatens the urgently needed energy transition. It risks replacing one form of environmental harm with another by allowing projects meant to support climate action to damage ecosystems, water sources, biodiversity and the lands and territories on which communities depend – sometimes even displacing communities in the process. As long as the individuals, communities and peoples affected by the transition mineral boom face harms and silencing, the extraction of these minerals will continue to breed resentment, conflict, lawsuits and project delays, and will ultimately undermine democratic institutions and the already faltering trust in the politicians driving climate action.

As public trust deteriorates, risk of opposition to other large infrastructure projects – such as the wind and solar projects on which the energy transition depends – will also increase. But the alternative is not to slow or weaken climate action. It is to make it more durable, legitimate and effective.

Governments can still get this right by recognising that participatory processes, transparency over decisions to mine and the intended end uses of minerals, corporate human rights and environmental due diligence, sound environmental and rights regulatory frameworks, and the protection of human rights defenders are not obstacles to be managed but cornerstones of democratic governance. Upholding them is both an obligation in itself and the foundation for the trust, legitimacy and durable public support on which a just and sustainable energy transition depends.

In practice, this means building transition mineral strategies based on adequate consultation processes, consent, rights and reduced demand – and crucially, only proceeding with projects where Indigenous Peoples’ right to free, prior and informed consent is respected and affected communities can participate fully and effectively in a safe and meaningful manner.

The flawed assumption that meaningful community engagement and early identification of human rights and environmental risks will delay projects is misguided. In practice, bypassing these processes creates material risks, fuels conflict, and threatens the long-term viability and sustainability of projects. At the same time, growing restrictions on civic space are making it increasingly difficult for affected communities, human rights defenders and civil society organisations to safely raise concerns and share critical information about project-related risks before they escalate. Freedom House found that global freedom declined for the 20th consecutive year in 2026. V-Dem's 2026 democracy report also describes a deepening global democratic deterioration. As civic space contracts, the critical information for effective human rights and environmental due diligence also shrinks, increasing the risk that grievances remain hidden until they erupt into conflict, litigation or project disruption.

Indeed, a substantial body of research suggests that suppressing peaceful protest does not eliminate the grievances that motivate dissent (examples here and here). Instead, repression and targeting of critical voices often reduces the visibility of that opposition, while driving it into less institutionalised forms, eroding trust in public institutions and policies – often aggravated by corruption and increasing social polarisation. Better citizen participation, by contrast, tends to go hand-in-hand with greater trust in the governments, as evidenced in a 2024 OECD survey.

In other words, the current approach to transition mineral mining focuses on short-term securing of mineral supplies at the expense of longer-term stability and public trust. At a moment when trust in institutions is already at a historical low, societal polarisation is seen as one of the biggest risks as identified by the World Economic Forum, and continued public support for climate action is urgently needed, this is not a viable strategy to deliver a sustainable energy transition.

What is the current state of civic freedoms in major transition mineral producing countries? Focusing on the countries linked to the highest numbers of alleged abuses recorded in the BHRC Transition Minerals Tracker, we examined various indicators measuring how free people are to speak up and organise in these jurisdictions. The minerals extracted from these countries feed global supply chains, with the main buyers concentrated among major industrial economies.

Extraction is likely to grow over time, as many of these countries hold some of the world's largest identified reserves of several minerals critical to the energy transition. They dominate global reserves of nickel (Indonesia), copper (Chile, Peru), lithium (Chile), cobalt (DRC), rare earth elements (Brazil) and zinc (Peru).

All ten of these major transition mineral producing countries show at least one key indicator of worsening civic space or democratic governance. Seven in ten show worsening trends in either rule of law, democracy and accountability, or press freedom. Three countries stand out as the highest risk among these ten because they combine nearly all categories of concern: Indonesia (9/9), Peru (8/9) and Mexico (7/9). These findings suggest that in many cases, transition mineral extraction is already leading to abuses, and that this is happening amid clearly worsening civic space and rule-of-law conditions.

In a context of narrowed civic space, often characterised by the criminalisation and vilification of dissent, concerns about the impacts of mining are increasingly being weaponised as opposition to development. This is contributing to consistent attacks on defenders, particularly as the new mining boom creates political and financial incentives for some government and corporate actors to prioritise rapid project approval and delivery.

In practice, these incentives can to lead environmental, social and human rights safeguards – and the defenders who insist on them – being treated as obstacles, rather than as essential conditions for responsible development. At the very moment meaningful participation is most needed to sustain trust in climate action and advance a just, sustainable energy transition, those seeking to exercise their rights to information, consultation and public participation in shaping these processes are facing increasing criminalisation, harassment, strategic lawsuits and violence, as well as growing restrictions on their ability to speak up. This prefigures a future in which only a few benefit from the proceeds of the acceleration in mining extraction – while the majority suffer the consequences without being able to safely and openly raise their concerns.

This dynamic is not only unfolding in established mineral markets. It is increasingly evident in emerging markets, such as Madagascar, Malawi, Tanzania and Eastern Europe, including Serbia, where ambitious critical raw materials strategies, driven by demand from Global North countries, are colliding with weak trust in institutions, governance risks and growing restrictions on civic space.

The contradiction between government commitments on civic freedoms and the mining rush

Many producing and consuming countries have formally committed to protecting human rights, civic freedoms, and meaningful participation in business and natural resource governance. All countries referenced above are parties to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which safeguards rights underpinning the work of defenders, including freedom of expression, association, and assembly. The UK, Germany, France and the EU recognise defenders through policy frameworks and diplomatic guidance. Germany and France have adopted human rights due diligence laws with stakeholder engagement requirements, and the EU has adopted the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), also with strong obligations on stakeholder engagement. The US, UK, and Italy have also referenced defenders in their National Action Plans.

Among mineral-producing countries, Chile, Argentina and Mexico are parties to the Escazú Agreement – an environmental treaty in Latin America and the Caribbean that includes specific provisions on protecting environmental defenders – while Peru, Brazil and Mexico have established defender protection mechanisms or protocols. International standards, including the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: guidance on ensuring respect for human rights defenders and the Guiding Principles of the UN Secretary-General's Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals further recognise civic freedoms and respect for the rights of defenders as essential to responsible business conduct. The International Court of Justice made clear in its Advisory Opinion state obligations to protect human rights in all climate action.

Together, these commitments establish clear expectations that the expansion of transition mineral supply chains should not come at the expense of human rights, including civic participation and the protection of defenders. Yet, as the evidence above demonstrates, significant gaps remain between these commitments and the current mining rush.

Conflicts, delays, lawsuits and the cost of ignoring people’s concerns

Beyond international commitments – which should be the line governments don’t cross, but which many countries are increasingly disregarding – and the broad political risks posed by polarisation and loss of trust in institutions, there are also clear economic risks to advancing an energy transition without respect for rights. Across the globe, Indigenous Peoples, local communities and workers are mobilising to demand respect for their rights and remediation where harms have occurred related to transition mineral mining. In 2024 and 2025 our Transition Minerals Tracker recorded at least 173 cases of social conflicts and push-back, including 76 reported cases of protests, 25 strikes, and 94 lawsuits and regulatory actions, representing more than one third of all allegations in those two years. Communities and workers affected by abuse are increasingly turning to the courts: we’ve tracked 125 legal cases filed by people affected by abusive energy transition-related projects, the vast majority (89 cases) relating to transition mineral mining projects. Among these energy transition-related lawsuits, 71 lawsuits were brought against states for authorising business activities.

The scale of this resistance underscores the risks companies face when human rights considerations are treated as secondary to project acceleration. For many affected communities, litigation and formal complaints are not a first response, but a final avenue after prolonged efforts to seek dialogue, remedy and accountability have failed.

Recent research indicates that delays are a significant challenge in the mining sector. A significant portion of permitting delays are linked to environmental concerns or opposition from affected communities. Earlier studies have laid bare the substantial financial costs associated with social conflict, mining companies losing up to USD20 million a week in disrupted production.

By failing to meaningfully engage communities, respect the rights of defenders, or uphold environmental and human rights safeguards, companies risk creating precisely the delays and disruptions that policy makers seek to prevent. Instead of fuelling polarisation and conflict, governments should be listening to the concerns raised by defenders and their visions for a just energy transition, and making sure companies ground their work in three key principles essential for rights-based and reliable mineral supply chains: commitment to shared prosperity, fair negotiations and a corporate duty of care for human rights due diligence.

Defenders and civil society are sharing powerful recommendations and visions for a just energy transition, including through the Indigenous Peoples' Declaration on the Just Transition and the Joint Letter to UN Member States signed by over 100 civil society organisations. The recommendations below draw upon these documents and have been strengthened and jointly articulated with our partners in Indigenous-led organisations based in Mexico, Tanzania, Nepal and the Philippines.

For producing states

• Protect civic freedoms, public participation and defenders in relation to mining and renewable energy projects as part of state duty to protect rights and as foundational for a rights-respecting energy transition. End the criminalisation, harassment and repression of defenders, including passing legislation to prevent strategic lawsuits against public participation (more details here); ensuring access to justice and remedy; recognising defenders and communitiesas rightsholders (not merely stakeholders), avoiding use of national security, urgency or fast-track permitting to bypass environmental, social, human rights or FPIC safeguards.
• Ensure Indigenous Peoples’ rights, including their full and effective participation and consultation process aimed at securing FPIC, are binding in law and practice. Legally recognise and protect Indigenous Peoples’ rights, including the right to give or withhold FPIC (in line with the latest authoritative guidance); require early, meaningful and resourced participation from project design onwards; and establish no-go zones for culturally significant, sacred or livelihood-critical areas as determined by Indigenous Peoples.
• Ensure rightsholders are able to influence the outcomes of the engagement process and participate in the decisions that affect them. States must ensure safe, inclusive and public dialogue, grounded in adequate access to information, from the outset, enabling rights-holders to participate in decisions that affect them – including whether mining should proceed at all – rather than limiting their role to raising concerns about project impacts after key decisions have been made. Access to justice must be guaranteed, including the ability to challenge state decisions and/or put forward alternative proposals.
• Strengthen transparent, accountable and gender-responsive mineral governance. Publish contracts, licences, project-selection criteria and benefit-sharing terms in accessible, plain language; reform land and compensation laws to address recurring conflict; protect women’s rights to land, compensation and participation; and close enforcement gaps.
• Cooperate internationally to raise standards, not lower them. Support implementation of the UN Secretary-General’s Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals’ Guiding Principles, including through country support platforms and regional coalitions among producing states to avoid a race to the bottom.
• Recognise and protect Indigenous Peoples’ collective rights to lands, territories and natural resources. Legally recognise Indigenous Peoples’ customary ownership, tenure, governance and stewardship of their lands, territories and resources, and protect these rights in transition mineral and energy transition policies and projects.
• Resource Indigenous Peoples and affected communities to participate on an equal footing. Ensure communities have timely access to independent technical, legal and environmental expertise and adequate resources to understand proposed projects, assess their impacts and alternatives, develop their own positions and protocols, and participate effectively throughout decision-making processes.

For buying/consumer states

• Adopt UNDRIP as the minimum standard for their own engagement with Indigenous Peoples and require companies headquartered in their jurisdictions to apply the same standard throughout their operations and supply chains. This includes requiring companies respect and implement Indigenous Peoples’ right to FPIC in line with the latest FPIC Guidance.
• Stop treating speed and opacity as supply security. Ensure bilateral mineral agreements include binding requirements on environmental and human rights safeguards, defender protection, Indigenous Peoples’ rights, and meaningful participation by all affected groups.
• Resource rights-based governance in producing countries. Provide technical and financial support for producer-country regulatory capacity, contract transparency, land governance reform and enforcement, rather than focusing only on extraction infrastructure, and ensure non-judicial grievance mechanisms are accessible to affected communities (including OECD National Contact Points).
• Use regulation, procurement and finance to raise standards. Maintain and strengthen due diligence rules; ensure stakeholder engagement includes civil society and defenders and prioritise sourcing from mines with credible public human rights policies and FPIC standards that are implemented on the ground and verifiable in practice.
• Back multilateral, demand-side and circularity solutions. Support a dedicated UN mandate on equitable mineral governance, align multilateral development bank financing with rights-based safeguards, and adopt ambitious material sufficiency, efficiency and circularity targets.
• Support Indigenous-led pathways for a just energy transition. Provide direct, accessible technical and financial support for Indigenous-led renewable energy, territorial governance, conservation and livelihood initiatives, consistent with Indigenous Peoples’ own development priorities and visions.
  

For companies and investors

• Adopt commitments on defender protection and Indigenous Peoples’ rights, including FPIC. Adopt public zero tolerance policies on attacks against defenders and extend these expectations to business relationships; recognise Indigenous Peoples as rights-holders; and respect FPIC, including the right to say no, as a minimum condition for project development and financing (in line with latest authoritative guidance) and FPIC Protocols developed by communities.
• Engage early, continuously and in good faith. Consult affected communities, workers, unions, Indigenous Peoples and defenders from project design through closure; treat opposition as a signal of unresolved risk rather than an obstacle; and publicly recognise defenders as legitimate partners in identifying human rights, environmental and operational risks.
• Commit to fair and equitable shared prosperity approaches. Co-design benefit sharing, compensation and shared prosperity arrangements with affected communities, ensuring women, including Indigenous women, are meaningfully represented, directly benefit and are not excluded by land ownership or decision-making structures.
• Close due diligence, grievance and lobbying gaps. Adopt and co-create safe grievance mechanisms and robust human rights and environmental due diligence across operations and value chains, with risk assessment that are gender-sensitive and include risks to defenders. Investors should also screen for retaliation risks and use leverage to secure remedy, including guarantees of non-repetition.
• Publish material project information in accessible form. Disclose contracts, licences and key project terms in plain language so communities and civil society can scrutinise impacts, obligations and benefit-sharing arrangements.
• Support independent and community-led monitoring of environmental and human rights impacts throughout the project lifecycle. This should include participatory monitoring of water, land, livelihoods and other impacts identified as priorities by affected communities.
• Make financing conditional on rights-respecting project development. Investors and financial institutions should conduct their own human rights due diligence rather than relying solely on company assessments verify that FPIC has been obtained and maintained where required, assess risks to defenders before financing; establish clear escalation and disengagement criteria; and use leverage to prevent harm and secure remedy where adverse impacts occur
• Respect Indigenous Peoples’ cultural heritage, traditional knowledge and customary governance systems. Prevent their appropriation, damage or commercial use without the consent of the Indigenous Peoples concerned, and ensure their protection throughout the project lifecycle.

Dataset notes:

Transition Minerals Tracker (TMT): Business and Human Rights Centre database tracking allegations of human rights and environmental abuse linked to transition minerals mining operations since 2010.

Defenders dataset: Business and Human Rights Centre dataset tracking attacks against defenders raising concerns about business-related harms. The ten-year analysis identifies countries with the highest number of recorded attacks on defenders across sectors; the 2025 data shows countries with highest attacks in the latest analysis; TMT/Defenders subset: Cases within the Transition Minerals Tracker that involve attacks on defenders linked specifically to transition minerals mining – this shows where transition minerals projects are directly associated with risks to civic participation and defender safety.

World Governance Indicators (WGI): Voice and Accountability and Rule of Law indicators are used to identify whether broader governance conditions have worsened over time, including people’s ability to participate in public life and the strength of legal protections and institutions. In the WGI, Voice and Accountability refers to “perceptions of the extent to which citizens can participate in selecting their government including electoral integrity, and of accountability mechanisms for citizens - reflected in the ability to access information, governmental oversight bodies, and a robust traditional/digital media landscape” (WGI, 2025 Revision, World Bank (www.govindicators.org), Accessed on 07/08/2026.  World Bank (2025). “The Worldwide Governance Indicators: Revised Methodology for Measuring Governance Using Perception Data.” Washington, DC: World Bank Group.)

CIVICUS Monitor: Assesses the openness of civic space, including freedoms of association, peaceful assembly and expression - the table notes where civic space ratings have clearly deteriorated over time.

V-Dem Democracy Report: Identifies episodes of “autocratisation” and deterioration in democratic indicators - it is used here to show whether broader democratic safeguards are weakening

World Press Freedom Index: Measures conditions for media freedom - worsening scores are included because restrictions on journalism can limit public scrutiny of mining impacts, corruption, environmental harm and attacks on defenders.