Jakarta – Indonesia’s massive downstreaming agenda for critical minerals such as nickel, bauxite, and tin is often concentrated in areas with high biodiversity and within the living spaces of Indigenous Peoples. In response to the growing impacts of deforestation, pollution, and the risk of human rights violations, strengthening the capacity of the civil society ecosystem to utilize legal instruments and multi-layered accountability mechanisms has become an urgent necessity.
Responding to this need, the Indonesian Center for Environmental Law (ICEL) organized a National Workshop titled “Advancing Just Critical Mineral Governance: Advocacy Strategies and Legal Approaches” from 17–21 May 2026 in Jakarta. The workshop brought together dozens of representatives from civil society organizations (CSOs), legal practitioners, and environmental activists from extractive industry conflict areas across Indonesia.
Speaking as one of the resource persons during the session on Tuesday (19 May 2026), Aryanto Nugroho, National Coordinator of Publish What You Pay (PWYP) Indonesia, delivered a presentation titled “Advancing Critical Mineral Business Accountability in Indonesia through International Instruments, Financing, and Business and Human Rights (BHR).”
Connecting Local Struggles with Global Pressure
In his presentation, PWYP Indonesia introduced a Theory of Change framework that places local communities at the center of legitimacy throughout the advocacy process. Aryanto emphasized that no single mechanism—whether domestic law or international instruments—can independently address the complex impacts of the critical minerals industry.
“Community struggles on the ground must serve as the foundation of the entire movement, while international instruments and global pressure function as amplifiers. Effective advocacy strategies must combine pressure at four levels simultaneously: local documentation, domestic coalitions, regional alliances, and the use of international grievance mechanisms,” Aryanto explained.
PWYP Indonesia also mapped a number of international accountability mechanisms that community advocates can utilize, including the OECD Due Diligence Guidance, accountability mechanisms of multilateral financial institutions such as the IFC Compliance Advisor Ombudsman (CAO), the National Contact Point (NCP) grievance mechanism, and the implementation of the 2023 Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) Standard.
A Step-by-Step Approach: Returning Data Sovereignty to Affected Communities
Aryanto further outlined three operational steps for CSOs supporting communities affected by mining and smelting activities:
Accessing Transparency Data. Utilizing publicly available data from EITI reports, including beneficial ownership disclosures, contract transparency, and subnational revenue data available through official government data portals.
Democratizing Data at the Community Level. Bringing fiscal and licensing data directly into community forums in affected villages.
“The core principle is that communities living with the impacts must be the ones interpreting the data based on their lived realities—not having the data institutionalized through one-sided external analysis,” Aryanto stressed.
Strategic Multi-Level Escalation. Using findings and evidence jointly developed with communities to advocate for domestic policy reform, submit concerns to international EITI processes, and file formal complaints with international financial institutions supporting the projects.
Advancing Mandatory Compliance Toward the Right to a Healthy Environment
Through the workshop, PWYP Indonesia and ICEL once again called for an urgent shift from voluntary human rights compliance models toward mandatory Human Rights Due Diligence (HRDD). This transition is considered essential to ensure that critical mineral companies can no longer rely on cosmetic corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting but instead are held accountable for providing meaningful remedies for communities’ ecological rights.
The workshop is expected to strengthen coordination among civil society organizations, enabling them to pursue more strategic, coordinated, and evidence-based advocacy by effectively utilizing legal avenues and international accountability mechanisms to advance natural resource governance that is inclusive, transparent, and grounded in socio-ecological justice. (AN)