Whose Transition, Whose Consent? Evaluating Indigenous FPIC Protections and Justice Possibilities in Voluntary Standards Governing the Mining of Energy Transition Minerals

Sammanfattning

The accelerating global energy transition has intensified demand for energy transition minerals (ETMs), many of which are located on or near Indigenous lands. While ETMs are essential for decarbonisation, their extraction often reproduces entrenched patterns of socio-ecological injustice and generates new pressures on Indigenous Peoples, territories, and ways of life. Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) is recognised in international law as a fundamental Indigenous right, yet its translation into practice remains inconsistent and contested. As governments and corporations increasingly rely on voluntary sustainability standards (VSS) to define ‘responsible’ ETM mining in this context, a critical governance gap has emerged: how these standards interpret, operationalise, and protect FPIC and with what implications for justice. This thesis addresses this gap by examining how key stakeholders conceptualise FPIC; how and to what extent three influential VSS (IRMA, ASI and CMSI) uphold FPIC across their content, assurance systems, and governance structures; and what these dynamics reveal about the possibilities and limits of a just energy transition. The study draws on qualitative methods, combining 10 semi-structured stakeholder interviews with analysis of 46 practitioner sources including standards documents, reports, briefings, articles, websites, and webinars. Environmental justice theory, political ecology, and geographical political economy (the ‘new energy spaces’ framework) provide an integrated analytical lens through which to understand how FPIC is shaped by and reshapes socio-spatial configurations of power, knowledge, and authority. The findings show that VSS function as governance arenas within which FPIC has become a central object of contestation in broader struggles to negotiate the meaning of a ‘just transition.’ Stakeholder understandings of FPIC diverge sharply; VSS uphold FPIC unevenly; and certification logics translate a relational right, with culturally grounded processes, into procedural indicators that risk hollowing its substantive meaning. Yet, Indigenous-led interventions within VSS reveal opportunities for jurisgenerative transformation. The thesis concludes that VSS are hybrid institutions capable of both enabling and constraining justice. Their ability to protect and uphold FPIC depends less on its formal inclusion than on the governance infrastructures, assurance systems, and power relations through which it is operationalised. The research contributes novel empirical, theoretical, and practical insights, demonstrating that realising a just transition requires centring Indigenous authority, embedding community-led FPIC processes, and reconfiguring the institutional architectures governing ETM mining.