Joint Statement by the SIRGE COALITION 

It is imperative the European Union endorses the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) in order to safeguard Indigenous Peoples’ rights, human rights, and protect the environment. The CSDDD plays a critical role in the European Union’s green transition as well as in ensuring policy coherence within and beyond the EU.

Corporate abuses within and beyond Europe harm both people and the environment. Over the past four years, Indigenous Peoples and Civil Society have called on the EU to take responsibility for corporate abuses. The CSDDD ensures human rights, Indigenous Peoples’ rights, and keeping a healthy environment is taken care of in the production of goods for the European market. The CSDDD is also central in the discussion of the Critical Raw Material Act and many of the assurances to respect human rights and Indigenous Peoples’ rights.

If Europe wants to ensure a timely and just transition, it cannot delay the CSDDD. 

Those who oppose the CSDDD argue that it will burden companies with unnecessary red tape. That is not only false, since the CSDDD would instead secure a level playing field for responsible businesses that battle fierce competition with companies that produce by exploiting cheap labor, violating human and Indigenous Peoples’ rights and destroying the environment, but it also raises serious questions.

Is the EU going to perpetuate existing corporate abuses by using this false argument and putting clearly short-term profit over human rights, Indigenous Peoples rights and environmental integrity? 

The Securing Indigenous Peoples’ Rights in the Green Economy (SIRGE) Coalition supports the strong leadership of the Belgian Presidency and joins the call from over 140 European organizations to rise to the occasion, circle back to the Member States, and ensure a strong majority without haggling over the key principles of the compromise hammered out in the trialogue agreement. 

By stalling the CSDDD, the EU sends an extremely negative message to the world that the EU is not serious about halting corporate abuses, respecting Indigenous Peoples’ rights and human rights and to ensuring the protection of nature during its green transition.

Galina Angarova (Buryat) said: “The CSDDD is of great importance to Indigenous Peoples throughout the world, especially because of EU’s increasing demand for electric cars and renewable technologies that use minerals such as nickel, cobalt, lithium and copper. More than half of these energy transition minerals are located on or near Indigenous Peoples’ lands, posing a threat to their lives and well-being. The CSDDD is a necessary legal framework for protecting Indigenous People’s rights by holding companies accountable for their actions overseas.”

Pavel Sulyandziga (Udege) said: “If the European Union doesn’t change its decision, it will endanger the lives of many Indigenous Peoples around the world. And then we return again to the era of colonization, now green.”