The E-Waste Column no. 196
- 4 days ago
- 2 min read
Today, we are looking at social risks from critical raw material stockpiling.
🌱 What human rights violations may occur?
The ongoing efforts of countries to stockpile critical raw materials “risk[s] fueling forced and child labor on a massive scale”. According to Isabelle Glimcher and Dorothée Baumann-Pauly from the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, there is a clear “tension between national security imperatives and forced- and child-labor bans”. Several of the minerals deemed as critical in the EU and the U.S. “are being mined in informal and unregulated mines and are being mined or processed with forced labor”. While there are some safeguards in place in import and procurement laws in the EU and U.S., these safeguards only work if they are “rigorously applied and coupled with on-the-ground collaboration to formalize mining and address the root causes of forced and child labor”. Consequently, the U.S. Department of Labor has stated that its “2024 List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor includes 12 critical materials that are at risk of being produced by child labor or forced labor”.
🌱 Why is stockpiling cobalt problematic?
Over 70% of the cobalt mined globally comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Of this, roughly 15% to 30% originates from artisanal and small-scale mines, where child labor occurs and workers are injured or die in hand-dug mines that are prone to collapse. The children and workers in these artisanal and small-scale mines live in extreme poverty and have no other means to support their livelihoods and families.
🌱 Why is stockpiling lithium problematic?
Around 80 000 tons of lithium is refined globally every year, and this amount is expected to increase by a seven-fold by 2030. The largest reserves of lithium globally are found in the so-called “Lithium Triangle” in Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile. As lithium is “extracted by pumping brine out of the ground and then evaporating it”, lithium mining “dries out the land and contaminates the water”. The loss of arable land can threaten farmers’ livelihoods in and around the Lithium Triangle, where much of the land is barren. The contamination of tap water with arsenic creates a hazard to human health.
🌱 How can governments address risks?
The procurement laws currently in place in the EU and the U.S. leave space for governments to “stockpile as quickly as possible” without truly addressing social risks. Governments must therefore take active steps if they intend to avoid labour and human rights violations. This includes “work[ing] in close consultation with industry, workers groups, and the governments of countries where the minerals can be extracted to (1) formalize [artisanal and small-scale] mining, (2) develop common standards to address mine safety, forced labor, and child labor, and (3) address the systemic poverty which drives families to resort to child and forced labor”.
💡 Next week, we are looking at measures companies can take to address human rights issues in their raw material supply chains.
Read more about the human rights impacts of critical minerals here:
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