Recommendations to Ensure Electric Vehicle Compliance with Indigenous Peoples’ Rights and Free, Prior and Informed Consent
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Introduction
Electric vehicle (EVs) manufacturing and associated infrastructure are driving the demand for transition minerals like lithium, copper, cobalt, graphite, and nickel. Demand is expected to continue rising, irrespective of whether the growth of the EV market accelerates or levels off in the future*. These dynamics do not alter the applicability of internationally recognized Indigenous Peoples’ rights including the right to Free Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC), nor do they justify any exception, limitation, or trade-off with those rights. Where projects or sourcing activities affect Indigenous Peoples’ lands, territories, or resources, companies have a responsibility to respect those rights, independently of State conduct, including the requirement to engage in self-determined, culturally appropriate, and good-faith processes consistent with FPIC throughout the full project and supply chain lifecycle.
One point is clear: Indigenous Peoples’ rights are not contingent on market conditions, supply shortages, or strategic priorities. Under international human rights law, States have duties to respect Indigenous Peoples’ right to FPIC, which is achieved when States engage with Indigenous Peoples through their own self-determined processes and culturally grounded procedures, with the aim of reaching agreement, with the understanding that the lack of agreement constitutes a substantive rights risk rather than a procedural outcome; corporations, in turn, have an independent responsibility to respect Indigenous Peoples’ rights regardless of State action or approval. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), is the most widely recognized global standard on Indigenous Peoples’ rights and affirms that Indigenous Peoples have the right to give or withhold consent in specific situations, including in cases such as relocation, any project affecting their lands or territories and other resources, and the storage or disposal of hazardous materials.
Taken together, UNDRIP, and related international human rights standards, including the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, the OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Business Conduct, and core international human rights treaties such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), establish the minimum normative framework against which State conduct is assessed and through which corporate responsibility to respect Indigenous Peoples’ rights is defined. For companies, this means that reliance on weak, incomplete, or purely procedural domestic law is insufficient where Indigenous Peoples’ rights are at risk, including where domestic frameworks fail to recognize Indigenous Peoples, limit land rights, or reduce FPIC to consultation.
Failure to respect Indigenous Peoples’ rights exposes companies to material, legal, operational, reputational, and financial risks, including litigation, project suspension, loss of access to capital, reputational harm, and long-term supply chain instability. Accordingly, FPIC must be operationalized as an ongoing condition throughout the full project and supply chain lifecycle, rather than as a one-time approval, if companies are to maintain legitimacy, social license to operate, and resilient supply chains and reduce the likelihood of persistent conflict.
The recommendations below reflect the increasing expectations of supply chain due diligence, including the use of scoring and tiering methodologies by standards bodies, downstream buyers, and investors, alongside expanding traceability requirements and heightened regulatory and investor scrutiny. They outline how automakers and downstream buyers are expected to align with international standards and emerging best practices to ensure meaningful protection of Indigenous Peoples’ rights.
Recommendations
Ensure rigorous supply chain due diligence
Conduct thorough risk assessments: Automakers should implement enhanced due diligence processes that go beyond high-level country risk screening. This includes identifying the presence of Indigenous Peoples across all tiers of the supply chain; assessing risks to land, territories, cultural heritage, and livelihoods; and analyzing whether state processes adequately protect Indigenous Peoples’ rights in practice, including whether those processes are consistent with UNDRIP and recognized by affected Indigenous Peoples.
Integrate FPIC as a baseline requirement in sourcing decisions: FPIC must function as a non-negotiable, pass-or-fail condition in procurement decisions, within supply chain due diligence and scoring methodologies. Where Indigenous Peoples are affected, the absence of verified FPIC should automatically prevent sourcing, purchasing, contract renewal, or volume expansion unless and until resolved to the satisfaction of affected Indigenous Peoples. FPIC must not be treated as a mitigating factor, weighted indicator, or purely narrative disclosure item.
Apply clear red lines to procurement and buyer Leverage: Automakers should adopt explicit sourcing policies that establish red lines and trigger immediate pause or exit, including but not limited to: unresolved Indigenous opposition; FPIC constrained by state-only processes; failure to recognize Indigenous governance institutions; impacts to lands, waters, livelihoods, or cultural heritage without consent; human rights allegations; credible allegations of intimidation, coercion, or criminalization of Indigenous Peoples; and lack of access to Indigenous-appropriate and effective grievance and remedy mechanisms.
Protect Indigenous Peoples in Voluntary Isolation and Initial Contact: Where there is credible evidence, reasonable risk, or uncertainty regarding the presence of Indigenous Peoples in Voluntary Isolation and Initial Contact, companies must apply no-contact and no-go approach. In such contexts, FPIC cannot be sought or obtained and must not be substituted with consultation, proxy engagement, or State assurances. Automakers and downstream buyers should exclude affected areas, including buffer zones and indirectly impacted territories, from sourcing and infrastructure development, and require suppliers to demonstrate that operations do not encroach upon, fragment, or increase access to IPVIIC territories. The absence of reliable, independent information confirming that IPVIIC are not present must be treated as a high-risk condition requiring suspension or avoidance of sourcing.
Adopt and enforce international standards contractually: Automakers should integrate UNDRIP (including Article 32), and related international human rights standards into supplier codes of conduct, purchasing agreements, and audit protocols. Suppliers must be contractually required to demonstrate respect for Indigenous Peoples’ rights, including FPIC, through verifiable evidence, with clear consequences for non-compliance, including suspension and termination of contracts.
Address multi-tier supply chains and indirect sourcing: The absence of direct ownership or equity participation in mining operations must not diminish responsibility to respect Indigenous Peoples’ rights. Where EV supply chains extend across multiple tiers, companies must exercise heightened due diligence commensurate with risk. At a minimum, this requires traceability to the point of extraction or to a defined set of mines, verification of whether Indigenous Peoples are affected, and assessment of whether FPIC processes have been undertaken and remain contested or unresolved. Where FPIC status cannot be reasonably verified due to opacity or supplier refusal, sourcing should be paused until sufficient information is obtained. Tier distance cannot be used to justify continued sourcing in high-risk contexts affecting Indigenous Peoples.
2. Ensure early, meaningful and ongoing engagement with Indigenous Peoples
Prioritize early and continuous engagement: Engagement with Indigenous Peoples must begin at the earliest stages of project planning, including exploration, and continue throughout the project lifecycle, including expansion, closure, and post-closure. Engagement should be iterative, transparent, and responsive to community priorities rather than driven by project timelines, and should include enough resources and adequate time for Indigenous Peoples’ decision-making.
Ensure Free, Prior and Informed Consent: FPIC must be obtained prior to any decisions or activities that may affect Indigenous Peoples’ rights, lives, and livelihoods. Consent processes must be free from coercion, manipulation, or unequal bargaining power; informed through culturally appropriate, accessible information; and allow sufficient time for Indigenous Peoples’ decision-making processes. Consent must also be understood as specific to the activity and context in question and as revocable where project design, scope, impacts, or circumstances materially change.
Respect Indigenous Peoples’ governance and decision-making systems: Automakers must recognize and engage with Indigenous Peoples’ governance institutions, laws, and protocols, including traditional authorities and community-defined representatives. Engagement processes should be aligned with Indigenous Peoples’ own decision-making structures and must not rely on externally imposed consultation models or State-defined interlocutors or representatives.
3. Strengthen transparency, disclosure, and accountability
Implement meaningful public disclosure: Automakers should publicly disclose how Indigenous Peoples’ rights, including FPIC, are identified, assessed, and respected across their supply chains. Disclosure should include the identity of affected Indigenous Peoples, FPIC status, and areas of unresolved disagreement. Automakers should also disclose the number of grievances, grievance outcomes, and steps taken to remedy harms or misuse of sensitive information.
Align disclosure with procurement and escalation decisions: Automakers should demonstrate how FPIC-related risks directly inform sourcing decisions, procurement escalation, and supplier disengagement. Disclosure should make clear when sourcing has been paused, conditioned, or terminated due to Indigenous Peoples’ rights concerns, including where consent is absent, contested, or cannot be verified
Establish accessible, Indigenous-specific, and effective grievance and remedy mechanisms: Companies should ensure access to effective, culturally appropriate grievance mechanisms co-designed with Indigenous Peoples and independent of state systems, whether effective or noneffective. Where harms have occurred, companies must contribute to timely, effective remedy and reparations, including restitution, compensation, and guarantees of non-repetition, as determined with affected Indigenous Peoples.
4. Build equitable partnerships and shared governance
Collaborate with Indigenous Peoples’ representative organizations: Automakers should prioritize partnerships with Indigenous Peoples’ organizations that are directly accountable to affected communities. These partnerships should support the co-development of engagement approaches, monitoring frameworks, and remedial actions, and must not be limited to symbolic, consultative, or only advisory roles.
Center Affected Indigenous Peoples and their leadership on the ground: Automakers must recognize that primary authority rests with the Indigenous Peoples directly affected by extraction and sourcing activities, including their leaders, traditional authorities, elders, women, youth, and other representatives determined by the community itself. Engagement with Indigenous experts, Indigenous-led institutions, or organizations must never substitute for, override, or dilute the decision-making authority of affected Indigenous Peoples on the ground.
Engage Indigenous-led experts and institutions: Work with Indigenous-led legal, technical, and policy experts to assess FPIC processes, identify systemic risks, and improve company practice. Such expertise should complement, and be accountable to the leadership and decisions of affected Indigenous Peoples, informing both corporate policy and on-the-ground decision-making without displacing Indigenous authority.
5. Invest in training, capacity building, and remedy
Provide role-specific training on Indigenous Peoples’ Rights: Companies should provide ongoing, role-specific training for executives, procurement teams, auditors, and suppliers on Indigenous Peoples’ rights and FPIC. Training should emphasize practical implementation, power dynamics, and accountability, rather than remaining at the high-level principles.
Support Indigenous community capacity without undermining FPIC: Support for community capacity-building, including access to independent legal, technical, and financial advice should be provided in ways that strengthen Indigenous Peoples’ decision-making without pressuring communities to consent. Capacity support must NEVER be treated as a substitute for FPIC or as evidence of consent, and should be provided on terms agreed by the Indigenous Peoples concerned
Ensure access to remedy and reparations: Where Indigenous Peoples’ rights have been violated, companies must immediately cease or suspend the activities causing the violation and contribute to timely, effective remedy and reparations, including restitution, compensation, and guarantees of non-repetition, as determined in partnership with and agreed by affected Indigenous Peoples.
The expansion and operation of EV supply chains, regardless of whether demand accelerates or stabilizes, does not alter the applicability of Indigenous Peoples’ rights. Market conditions, strategic minerals narratives, and multi-tier sourcing structures do not diminish corporate responsibility where extraction or sourcing affects Indigenous Peoples’ lands, territories, or resources.
Respecting Indigenous Peoples’ rights and engaging in processes consistent with FPIC is not a discretionary sustainability measure or a matter of best efforts. It is a foundational requirement for ethical, lawful, and resilient supply chains, assessed against internationally recognized human rights standards and evolving expectations of responsible business conduct. FPIC must be operationalized through concrete decision rules, including clear sourcing red lines, traceability to the point of extraction, and mandatory actions such as pausing sourcing, withholding contract renewal, suspending volumes, or terminating supplier relationships where consent is absent, contested, or cannot be verified.
In a context of increasingly complex and multi-tier supply chains, opacity cannot be treated as neutrality. Where companies cannot reasonably determine whether Indigenous Peoples’ rights are being respected at the point of extraction, continued sourcing constitutes a failure of due diligence, not a technical limitation. Responsible sourcing requires pausing, conditioning, or disengaging from supply until such risks are addressed in a manner consistent with Indigenous Peoples’ rights.
EV automakers should integrate Indigenous Peoples' rights into their due diligence systems, scoring methodologies, procurement decisions, and supplier accountability to align with emerging best practices and mitigate material, legal, reputational, operational, and financial risks. Respecting Indigenous Peoples as rights-holders, rather than merely as stakeholders, will better position companies to secure long-term supply stability, investor confidence, and public trust.
For supply chains to be truly sustainable, they must have the Free, Prior and Informed Consent of Indigenous Peoples. By prioritizing and securing this consent, companies can proactively minimize conflict, support Indigenous Peoples' self-determination and decision-making authority, reduce the risk of persistent conflict, and contribute at the same time significantly to more legitimate, stable, and rights-respecting supply chains within a just transition.
Further Reading
*IEA (2025), Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2025, IEA, Paris https://www.iea.org/reports/global-critical-minerals-outlook-2025
