Mining ‘Critical Minerals’ in Eastern Europe and Central Asia Rife With Rights Abuses

As high-consuming economies like the United States and Europe move to supplant fossil fuels with low-carbon technologies, a race is on to extract and process critical minerals for use in electric vehicles, wind turbines, transmission lines and solar panels. 

That skyrocketing demand is already having a direct impact on the environment, communities and workers across Eastern Europe and Central Asia, according to a new report from the U.K.-based Business and Human Rights Resource Center.

Over the past five years, the organization tracked more than 400 allegations of human rights abuses across 16 countries related to the industrial extraction, smelting and refining of metals and minerals such as copper, zinc, silver, lead, chromium, uranium and iron. 

Over the same time period, the market for key energy transition minerals doubled to reach $320 billion in 2022, according to the International Energy Agency. Reaching the global climate goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 will require a six-fold increase in production of those materials by 2040 from current levels. Many of those metals and minerals are located in some of the world’s least-developed countries. 

Researchers compiled the allegations from open source information including news reports, U.N. documents and non-governmental organizations. Most of the allegations are related to the health and safety of workers, while about one-third involve claims of environmental harms from air, water and soil pollution. 

In some of the countries studied, health, safety and environmental safeguards are less stringent than in the United States and Europe, where consumers are driving much of the demand for low-energy technologies. Mining can emit nitrogen oxides, particulate matter and greenhouse gas emissions into the air, while seepage from tailings impoundments and other discharges can release toxic compounds like arsenic into water and soil. Operations can also cause deforestation and destroy animal habitat, with impacts persisting long after mining operations have ceased. 

Russia, home to the fourth-largest reserves of rare-earth minerals, is the country recording the most allegations of abuse (112), with more than a quarter of all the allegations compiled by researchers. 

The report highlights multiple cases of companies operating in Russia concealing information related to workplace accidents, toxic smog pollution and hazardous waste released into the environment, including the Sentachan and Adycha rivers. In 2021, Inside Climate News reported on how the city of Norilsk, in the Russian Arctic, had become one of the most polluted places on Earth due in large part to a nickel smelting company whose pollution has poisoned rivers, killed off boreal forest and released more sulfur dioxide than active volcanoes.

The countries with the next highest share of allegations in the report are Armenia (51), Ukraine (47), Georgia (36) and Kazakhstan (35). 

Some of the allegations relate to multiple incidents. In Kazakhstan, for instance, inspections by prosecutors in Vostoktsvetmet and Kazzinc in 2021 turned up more than 1,200 health and safety violations ranging from inadequate lighting, air filtration and extreme temperatures, according to the report. Kazakhstan produces the most rare earth elements in the region, has the world’s largest reserves of chromium, used in solar and geothermal energy production, and the second-largest reserves of uranium. 

The report highlights several cases where workers and communities, lacking adequate judicial remedies for their complaints, turned to protests. For example, a group of Shukruti villagers in Georgia went on a hunger strike in 2021, responding to “uncompensated damage to their homes” allegedly caused by operations at a manganese mine. 

Researchers found that in most of the countries studied, “powerful businessmen with close links to politicians are involved in, or own, major extractive companies.” Oligarchs own eight of the top 10 companies with the highest numbers of allegations tallied in the report. 

In Kyrgyzstan, communities’ complaints against a mining company related to environmental contamination allegedly were “not completed due to the interference of high-ranking officials with vested interests in the process,” the report said. 

The report’s authors said due to the “repressive” environment in some of the countries studied, it is likely that the number of allegations contained in the report is an undercount.

“Various forms of repression are used to silence independent journalists and human rights defenders, inhibiting their ability to investigate human rights abuse and environmental destruction and seek accountability,” the report said.

Activists have called for improved safeguards for the protection of human rights and the environment, including increased transparency and consultation with local communities affected by mining operations. 

Ella Skybenko, report co-author and senior researcher for Eastern Europe and Central Asia at the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, said the transition to low-carbon energy should ensure “shared prosperity,” “fair negotiations” and respect human rights.

“However, based on the findings of our research, all three principles are missing when it comes to transition minerals, project development, extraction and processing,” Skybenko said.

The report adds to a growing body of research linking human rights, workers and environmental abuses to mining around the world. In December 2023, U.N. Secretary General António Guterres launched an initiative aimed at elevating human rights and environmental concerns in the extraction and processing of energy transition minerals and metals, warning that the world cannot “repeat the mistakes of the past” by exploiting developing countries. 

“The race to net zero cannot trample over the poor,” he said in a press release about the initiative. “The renewables revolution is happening, but we must make sure that it is done in a way that moves us towards justice.”