West Papua Critical Minerals: Human Rights

01 Apr

Question

The UK House of Commons question session centered around human rights concerns tied to critical minerals extraction in West Papua, as part of a broader bilateral agreement with Indonesia. The debate opened with a question from Alex Sobel who pressed for an amendment in the 2024 UK-Indonesia memorandum of understanding (MOU) to incorporate human rights protection measures in West Papua's critical minerals sector. Sobel highlighted Indonesia's unfulfilled promise to allow a UN human rights visit to West Papua, which has stalled the assessment of the region's human rights conditions.

Catherine West reaffirmed the UK's backing for the proposed UN visit, aligning it with initiatives supporting human rights in the critical minerals sector, such as the voluntary principles on security and human rights and the recently signed MOU.

29 November 2024

Date when the UK-Indonesia MOU on critical minerals was published.

Tom Tugendhat shifted the focus to China's involvement in the critical minerals market, where human rights and environmental standards were also under scrutiny. He requested the Minister to address these issues with the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, emphasizing the inconsistencies in China's green energy sector due to questionable production practices.

2018

Year when President Joko Widodo committed to a UN human rights visit to West Papua.

Catherine West agreed with Tugendhat's concerns, mentioning a forthcoming China audit intended to address these issues further.

Outcome

No immediate amendments to the MOU were announced. The session shed light on the UK's stance on human rights in critical minerals, but concrete measures remain pending, subject to further audits and international diplomacy.

Key Contributions

Alex Sobel

Labour

Requested an amendment to include human rights conditions in the UK-Indonesia MOU for West Papua.

Catherine West

Confirmed UK support for the UN High Commissioner's visit to West Papua.

Tom Tugendhat

Conservative

Called attention to human rights issues in China's critical minerals sector.

Catherine West

Agreed with concerns over China's human rights practices in the critical minerals sector.

Original Transcript

Alex Sobel

Leeds Central and Headingley

Lab/Co-op

Question

UIN: 903541

8. If he will amend the memorandum of understanding between Indonesia and the UK on a strategic partnership on critical minerals, published on 29 November 2024, to include conditions on the protection of human rights in West Papua.

Alex Sobel

11:55

In 2018, President Joko Widodo promised the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights that he would be allowed to visit West Papua. No visit has yet been facilitated by Indonesia, although two High Commissioners have been and gone.

Without such a visit, it is impossible to assess the real human rights situation. Will the Minister ensure that the UK does not engage in critical minerals extraction in West Papua before such a visit takes place?

Tom Tugendhat

Tonbridge

Con

11:55

I am delighted to hear that the Minister has been raising human rights concerns with the Government of Indonesia about critical minerals.

Would she perhaps have a word with her colleague the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero about the human rights concerns over other critical minerals conversions in China?

It is going into a green energy economy that is supposed to have environmental, social and governance accords, yet somehow or other it fails on all of those: it fails because of its coal-powered production, it fails because its products are made by socially undesirable slave labour—I hope she agrees about that—and it fails on governance because there is no oversight.

Will she have those same conversations within her own Government?

Catherine West

11:56

The right hon. Gentleman is quite right to raise those pressing concerns, and all will be revealed when the China audit comes forward with the specifics on his question.

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