Europe has a strong demand for critical metals, from the energy transition to defence. Yet many of these metals originate from countries where mining is associated with environmental harm and human-rights abuses. Steffen van der Velde, PhD candidate at Erasmus School of Law, examines how Europe manages the tension between securing access to critical metals and its self-imposed obligation to promote sustainable development in low- and middle-income countries. “We make ambitious promises, but we do not always act accordingly,” he says.
Van der Velde combines his doctoral research with his work as a policy officer at the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management. His interest in minerals began early: first as a child collecting stones, later as a student of European law eager to understand how Europe can influence mining activities far beyond its own borders. “You cannot achieve sustainable extraction with a patchwork of national rules,” he argues. “This must be organised at EU level.”
That personal interest and legal perspective converge in his dissertation. He examines how European trade and investment policy plays out in practice in the countries where these metals are actually extracted, and why the promised sustainable development often fails to materialise.
The importance of critical metals
Critical metals such as cobalt and neodymium are essential for producing the magnets used in electric vehicles and wind turbines. Economically viable deposits within Europe are scarce. According to recent figures from Statistics Netherlands, in 2024 China was the Netherlands’ main supplier for eight of these metals. To reduce this dependency, the EU is seeking alternative supply chains. “That search quickly leads to low- and middle-income countries with large reserves but also to regions where mining often entails risks, human-rights violations, environmental pollution and negative economic effects,” Van der Velde notes.
At the same time, the EU has committed itself in its Treaties to ensuring that trade and investment do not undermine, but rather enhance, the long-term development of partner countries. This is precisely where the tension lies. “We need a more balanced approach. The EU must take its own sustainability ambitions more seriously, even when these conflict with economic interests,” he adds.
The gap between European ambition and implementation
Van der Velde does more than expose what goes wrong in Europe’s raw-materials policy. He developed a legal framework showing how sustainability objectives can be embedded in EU investment policy relating to mining, a means of assessing whether European investments in low- and middle-income countries truly contribute to sustainable development.
“The current system is primarily designed to protect investments, not to enforce sustainability,” he explains. “This structure evolved historically from postcolonial assumptions that foreign investments needed to be shielded from political instability and the risk of nationalisation.” His analysis reveals where policy becomes stuck, but also how it could be reoriented: granting host countries greater regulatory space to steer the impacts of foreign investment in line with their development priorities, and imposing stricter responsibilities on European companies operating abroad, supported by investment rules that safeguard environmental protection and provide for liability in cases of environmental damage or human-rights abuses, rather than serving purely commercial interests.
His approach connects the research to a broader global debate on the future of international investment law. “My research adds something that is often missing in Brussels,” Van der Velde says: “a concrete instrument showing what the EU would need to change in its legislation and policy in order to better honour its sustainability commitments in the countries where these metals originate.”
Looking ahead
If his research yields one essential insight, Van der Velde argues, it is this: the theoretical framework he developed ensures that “sustainable development”—often dismissed as too vague or insufficiently concrete—no longer remains merely a paper concept, but gains practical meaning within a specific context: European investments in mining in low- and middle-income countries. “It would also be a significant step if European companies operating outside the EU bore the same responsibilities they do within Europe,” he notes, “and if EU Member States made greater efforts to hold companies liable for harm caused abroad. That is ultimately where it starts.”
At the same time, the dissertation highlights the questions that remain unresolved. The framework he proposes, he argues, can help provide a clearer understanding of how European trade and investment policies affect developing contexts. “We still know too little about what our policies mean on the ground,” Van der Velde says. “There is much work ahead for future research.”
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About the dissertation ‘The EU’s legal obligation to promote sustainable development through FDI policy: A case study on the regulation of EU FDI in mineral mining in developing countries': Under the Treaty of Lisbon, the policy area 'foreign direct investment' became part of the EU's Common Commercial Policy (CCP). The CCP should be implemented in accordance with the 'principles and objectives of EU External Action'. This means, inter alia, that EU foreign investment policy should foster sustainable development in developing countries and that natural resources must be managed in a sustainable manner. This thesis develops a definition of 'sustainability' in the context of mineral mining in developing countries and examines whether the EU is meeting its self-imposed legal obligations.
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