Resource Security Through External Trade and Investment – A Human Rights Challenge for the EU

Resource security, namely the EU’s capacity to reduce dependence on third-country imports, diversify supply chains and increase the extraction of raw materials within its territory, is essential for its green and digital transition, as well as for its defence capabilities. Using trade and investment policy as a vehicle, the EU has sought, especially over the past five years, to meet its resource security needs while navigating evolving geopolitical and geoeconomic challenges.

This paper critically examines the Union’s choice to advance its resource security objective relying on ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ law trade and investment instruments, with particular attention to the human rights implications of raw materials projects in host states. In doing so, it explores the extent to which these instruments include preventative and remedial mechanisms for human rights abuses arising from raw materials mining within and beyond EU borders, and what this means for the EU, which is constitutionally bound to respect and uphold human rights when acting externally. In all, the paper argues that resource security and human rights protection are mutually reinforcing objectives. Yet, this complementarity remains only partially realised, particularly in the context of the EU’s non-binding raw materials partnerships, where human rights safeguards are weaker than those found in its trade and investment agreements with third countries.