REDESCA urges the protection of human rights in the extraction of minerals for the energy transition

April 22, 2025

Washington, D.C. – In the context of the International Mother Earth Day, REDESCA recalls that overcoming the fossil fuel-based model—responsible for a substantial part of the climate crisis—is an urgent and unavoidable priority. However, it emphasizes that the push for an energy transition must not replicate the same patterns of dispossession, inequality, and extractivism. It is essential to move toward a just transition that respects human rights and the right to a healthy environment, from the earliest strategic decisions to the territorial implementation of energy projects.

Latin America and the Caribbean play a crucial role in the global energy transition due to their vast reserves of critical minerals such as lithium, copper, and cobalt, which are essential for clean technologies including batteries, solar panels, wind turbines, and storage systems. The growing demand for these minerals is being driven by key sectors of the energy transition, including solar and wind energy, the expansion of electric grids—which particularly require copper and aluminum—and the rapid development of electric mobility. In 2023, nearly 14 million electric vehicles were sold globally, a 35% increase over the previous year, and sales are expected to reach 17 million in 2024, making up 20% of total automobile sales. As the climate crisis accelerates, the international community has reaffirmed the urgency of a just and equitable transition away from fossil fuels. However, while this transformation offers opportunities for economic growth and decarbonization, it also poses significant risks to environmental sustainability, water resources, and the economic, social, cultural, and environmental rights of local communities. Strengthening governance frameworks, promoting responsible investment, and ensuring compliance with high environmental and human rights standards is therefore urgent to ensure the energy transition does not come at the expense of fundamental rights or ecosystems.

During a thematic hearing held in November 2024 before the IACHR, various civil society organizations alerted the Special Rapporteurship to the serious environmental and social impacts already occurring as a result of the accelerated expansion of mining linked to the energy transition. Concerns were raised about water contamination, damage to fragile ecosystems and ancestral territories, the rise of socio-environmental conflicts, and threats against local communities, Indigenous Peoples, and environmental human rights defenders. Organizations also denounced a lack of guarantees in access to information, public participation, and prior, free and informed consultation, as well as the absence of comprehensive and independent impact assessments on human rights and the environment—factors that intensify human rights violations in these contexts.

REDESCA has received concerning information about extractive projects related to lithium that are advancing without prior, free, and informed consultation with Indigenous and local communities. In several cases, community consultation protocols have been disregarded, and the right to oppose such projects has been restricted. Reports also include harassment of environmental defenders and limitations on access to environmental information. Additionally, the drying of watercourses and intensive extraction of freshwater in high Andean wetlands has been documented, affecting local wildlife and sacred sites without the consent of affected communities. The Special Rapporteurship has also received reports of the extraction of strategic minerals such as tungsten, coltan, and copper in Indigenous territories and protected areas, resulting in serious environmental damage and water pollution. These activities are taking place in highly conflictive regions with the presence of non-state armed actors, further increasing risks for communities and environmental defenders.

REDESCA recalls that companies have a responsibility to respect human rights in all of their operations, including those linked to critical mineral supply chains for the energy transition. This responsibility is robustly developed in the Inter-American standards, which affirm the duty of States to prevent, regulate, supervise, and sanction corporate human rights impacts, as laid out in the IACHR and REDESCA report Business and Human Rights: Inter-American Standards. In this regard, the Special Rapporteurship calls on companies to adopt human rights due diligence processes, ensure transparent access to information, and provide effective remedy mechanisms for communities affected by their operations.

The Americas face the complex challenge of balancing the rising global demand for minerals with the protection of ecosystems and human rights—especially those of Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and rural communities on the frontlines of the energy transition. To avoid repeating historical patterns of inequality and escalating socio-environmental conflicts, it is essential to strengthen binding regulatory frameworks, promote inclusive public policies, and ensure effective implementation of international human rights and environmental standards.

REDESCA reaffirms that a truly just energy transition cannot be built upon extractive models that perpetuate inequality and sacrifice. It is time to advance a new paradigm rooted in social justice and the respect of human rights—where territories and communities are not the cost of change, but protagonists of a just and sustainable transformation.

The right to a healthy environment, recognized by the Inter-American system as autonomous and justiciable, is a fundamental pillar of a truly just energy transition. This entails concrete obligations for States in terms of regulation, supervision, environmental oversight, and the conduct of rigorous environmental impact assessments, as well as the full guarantee of the rights to access information, public participation, and environmental justice. In emerging sectors such as deep-sea mining, the precautionary principle is especially relevant, particularly in light of the current debates led by the International Seabed Authority. In the face of regressive regulatory reforms aimed at weakening environmental controls in some countries of the region, REDESCA urges States to uphold their international obligations without setbacks.

The Special Rapporteurship on Economic, Social, Cultural and Environmental Rights is an office created by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to strengthen the promotion and protection of economic, social, cultural, and environmental rights throughout the Americas, leading the Commission's efforts in this area. 

No. RD077/25

10:46 AM