Patricia Arrazola-Bustillo
Perez Llorca, Bogota

Critical minerals are essential to advanced industries such as electronics, defence, and renewable energy, yet growing demand has intensified concerns over supply risks, geopolitical tensions, and environmental impacts. The Covid-19 pandemic exposed structural vulnerabilities in global supply chains, reinforcing the urgency of securing stable and sustainable access to these resources.

The international legal architecture governing critical minerals is structured around three interrelated pillars, outlined below.

First, the multilateral trade system, led by the World Trade Organization (WTO). This provides the core framework for mineral trade, particularly through the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which limits unilateral export restrictions. While this system has supported a significant expansion in trade, increasing demand for clean technologies is testing its resilience.

Second, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) promotes resilient and sustainable supply chains through initiatives such as Critical Minerals for Sustainable Growth and Development, supporting policy coordination and responsible investment in producer countries.

Third, regional and plurilateral initiatives have gained prominence. Jurisdictions such as Australia, Canada, the European Union, Japan, South Korea and the United States participate in cooperative mechanisms, including the International Energy Agency (IEA) Critical Minerals Security Programme and the Minerals Security Partnership (MSP), aimed at strengthening supply security and scaling up sustainable investment. In parallel, the EU has advanced strategic partnerships to reduce dependencies and diversify supply sources.

This article argues that the central tension in contemporary mining centres on reconciling two competing objectives: scaling up the supply of critical minerals to serve strategic and climate related goals, and safeguarding environmental and social standards throughout the value chain. Meeting this dual objective calls for regulatory frameworks that operate coherently across international, regional, and domestic levels.

Comparative approaches

These multilevel frameworks take concrete form at the domestic level, where jurisdictions adopt regulatory strategies reflecting their positions as consumers or producers of critical minerals, as well as differing interpretations of resource sovereignty, environmental obligations, and international cooperation.

The EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) seeks to ensure a secure and sustainable supply while strengthening supply chain resilience. It promotes domestic production, strategic partnerships with third countries, and identifies critical and strategic materials essential for the green, digital, defence, and space sectors. The CRMA represents a comprehensive effort to integrate supply security, diversification, and sustainability within a single framework.

In the US, policy is shaped by industrial and national security priorities. Federal initiatives promote innovation in mining technologies and supply chain development, while instruments such as the Defense Production Act frame critical minerals as a strategic imperative. At the same time, efforts to streamline environmental permitting aim to accelerate project development, although they remain contested due to potential effects on environmental safeguards.

In resource-rich countries, regulatory strategies vary. Chile’s 2023 National Lithium Strategy combines state participation through public-private partnerships with international cooperation and downstream value creation, and negotiations with major producers continue to shape the regulatory landscape. Brazil seeks to leverage its reserves of lithium, niobium, and rare earth elements through local value addition and technology transfer, although its multi-layered environmental licensing framework, spanning federal, state, and municipal authorities, remains a significant challenge for project timelines. Argentina’s Régimen de Incentivo para Grandes Inversiones (RIGI), enacted under the 2024 Ley Bases, offers fiscal stability, tax, and foreign exchange incentives for large-scale mining investments, although the scope and duration of its guarantees, and their interaction with provincial regulatory authority, remain debated. Canada integrates Indigenous consultation and meaningful participation into its critical minerals strategy, reinforcing the growing importance of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) as reflected in the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).

Emerging legal issues: sustainability and environmental impact

A central challenge remains ensuring that expanded supply does not undermine environmental and social sustainability. Mineral extraction and processing generate significant greenhouse gas emissions and place increasing pressure on water resources, particularly in regions already experiencing water stress.

In this context, the development of more coherent international standards could strengthen the assessment of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance. Existing initiatives, such as the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA), a certification system developed by independent stakeholders, Towards Sustainable Mining (TSM), a system developed by the Mining Association of Canada, and The Copper Mark, a framework developed against criteria aligned with OECD guidance, provide important benchmarks, but their adoption remains uneven. Governments therefore play a key role in promoting, and in some cases mandating, responsible supply chains through regulatory instruments addressing trade, investment, and resource governance. For example, the European Union’s Conflict Minerals Regulation requires due diligence to ensure that certain minerals are sourced responsibly.

In parallel, the legal frameworks governing environmental permitting increasingly require meaningful engagement with Indigenous communities, particularly in jurisdictions where the social and environmental costs of extraction have fallen disproportionately on those populations. This trajectory underlines the consolidation of FPIC as a substantive requirement – rather than a procedural formality – in global mineral governance.

Conclusion

The extraction and processing of critical minerals remain geographically concentrated, while rising demand is intensifying geopolitical and economic tensions. As this article has shown, regulatory frameworks at the international, regional, and domestic levels continue to reflect a fundamental tension between the need to accelerate supply and the obligation to uphold environmental and social standards.

Addressing this challenge requires greater regulatory coherence, alignment between industrial, trade, and environmental policies, and the adoption of risk-based permitting frameworks that differentiate projects according to their impacts and strategic value. Ultimately, the governance of critical minerals is not merely a technical issue but a defining legal challenge of the 21st century, raising questions of sovereignty, equity, and environmental justice. Ensuring that supply chains are both secure and sustainable will depend on sustained cooperation between states, industry, and affected communities.

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