Country: China

China UPR: Cease overseas mining and power plant construction and urgently address human rights violations

Posted on by fredsaxo

Instead, China must urgently focus on providing remedies for communities harmed by Chinese-backed mining and power plant projects and prevent future abuses and violations of the right to food and nutrition.

Despite President Xi Jinping's 2021 pledge to support green and low-carbon energy development in developing countries, and China's promise to halt the construction of new overseas coal power projects, numerous local communities worldwide continue to endure the devastating impacts of Chinese-backed coal mines and thermal plants. These projects compromise their access to food, nutrition, and related rights, revealing a glaring inconsistency between China's commitments and the harsh realities on the ground.

Coal mining projects frequently involve forcible land acquisitions, leaving affected communities with no choice but to sell their agricultural land, often without adequate compensation. In Sahiwal, Pakistan, communities faced a coercive government land acquisition process and many farmers were forced into selling their agricultural lands to make way for a Chinese-funded coal-fired power plant. Multilayered pollution is already affecting local food production — damaging agricultural land and crops, contaminating water used for irrigation and domestic purposes, and altering food consumption patterns.

In parts of Serbia, people can no longer grow food for their own consumption and are forced to rely on supermarkets, straining household incomes. The severe pollution of air, water, and soil caused by coal thermal plants has taken a significant toll on human health in Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

“Authorities did not do anything to stop the pollution generated by the old coal power plant and ash disposal sites. The pollution will continue for decades to come without any consequence for the authorities, while people continue to fall ill,” says Denis Zisko from the Aarhus Center.

FIAN’s joint submission to the UPR highlights glaring irregularities in community consultation and environmental impact assessment procedures. In Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina, authorities renewed an environmental permit for the Tuzla 7 thermal power plant, despite complaints from civil society groups that emission values were not prescribed in line with the European Industrial Emission Directive during the impact assessment process. This exemplifies flagrant violations of national laws and policies.

“Although the Chinese side was aware of the fact that it could not deliver the equipment produced by General Electric – which was listed as a technical obligation in the contract between China Gezhouba Group Company Limited and Elektroprivreda BiH – it still put pressure on BiH authorities to continue with the project and insisted that this equipment be replaced by an alternative one, produced by a Chinese company,” laments Denis Zisko from Aarhus Center in BiH.

“This shows the contractor's complete lack of interest in withdrawing from the Tuzla 7 project and thereby fulfilling China’s pledge to support green and low-carbon energy development in developing countries.”

In Serbia, the Kostolac B3 in Drmno was constructed without legally obtained permits.

“We have challenged this before the Aarhus Convention, which proves that none of the coal capacities can be legally constructed. This situation highlights how China, in collaboration with Serbian authorities, is systematically undermining legal security in Serbia,” says Zvezdan Kalmar from the Center for Ecology and Sustainable Development (Centar za ekologiju i održivi razvoj, CEKOR).

While this leniency in enforcing existing policies and laws by national governments is concerning, China's actions constitute a breach of its human rights obligations beyond its borders (extraterritorial human rights obligations). China has also disregarded the 2023 recommendations (Concluding Observations) of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which specifically called for a halt in ongoing financing for coal-fired plant construction abroad and for China to ensure that business entities are held accountable for violations of economic, social, and cultural rights, with particular attention to peasants’ land rights, environmental impacts, and expropriation.

These recommendations echo demands made by several states during the UPR China review, including the Marshall Islands (suspension of ongoing financing for coal-fired power plants), Ecuador (measures to ensure that companies and financial institutions operating abroad respect human rights in all their activities), and Mexico (implementation of the recommendations on business and human rights made to China by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights).

Signed:

Aarhus Center BiH

Center for ecology and sustainable development, CEKOR

FIAN International

Pakistan Kissan Rabita Committee PKRC

For more information or media interviews, please contact Tom Sullivan, FIAN International Communication and Campaigns Coordinator: sullivan@fian.com

EU Must Act to Stop Coal Power Ecocide in Western Balkans

Posted on by fredsaxo

The Western Balkans has some of Europe’s highest air pollution levels. Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina source most of their energy from fossil fuels, especially domestically produced coal, with little regard for its impact on local communities. 

Most of the coal power plants were constructed during the Yugoslavia era, but a recent expansion of this polluting energy source has been funded by controversial Chinese-backed investments, often without environmental impact assessments and despite China’s commitment to cease funding coal power.

Local communities have fought for years to be re-located or fairly compensated for the impact of pollution and land erosion from mines and power stations. They have lost their land and livelihoods, seen their houses crumble around them and their health deteriorate due to coal-related diseases..

In a new briefing paper for EU institutions, EU must act to stop coal power ecocide in Western Balkans, FIAN International and local civil society groups highlight the harm inflicted by coal power and call for justice for the affected communities, including resettlement, compensation and the implementation of the EU's Green Agenda for the Western Balkans.

Read the briefing paper here.

EU must act to stop Balkan coal power ecocide

Posted on by fredsaxo

The Western Balkans has some of Europe’s highest air pollution levels. Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina source most of their energy from fossil fuels, especially domestically produced coal, with little regard for its impact on local communities. 

Most of the coal power plants were constructed during the Yugoslavia era, but a recent expansion of this polluting energy source has been funded by controversial Chinese-backed investments, often without environmental impact assessments and despite China’s committment to cease funding coal power.

Local communities have fought for years to be re-located or fairly compensated for the impact of pollution and land erosion from mines and power stations. They have lost their land and livelihoods, seen their houses crumble around them and their health deteriorate due to coal-related diseases..

In a new briefing paper for EU institutions, “EU must act to stop coal power ecocide in Western Balkans”, FIAN International and local civil society groups highlight the harm inflicted by coal power and call for justice for the affected communities, including resettlement, compensation and the implementation of the EU's Green Agenda for the Western Balkans.

“Apart from its impact on climate change, coal power jeopardizes internationally agreed human rights, notably the right to a healthy environment, the right to water, the right to health and the right to adequate food and nutrition,“ says FIAN International's Angelica Castañeda Flores.

 

“This ecological destruction shows how closely ecological health is intertwined with human life and wellbeing.” 

FIAN International has met affected people in several locations dominated by largescale coal mining and highly polluting coal power plants, notably Klicevac and Drmno villages, in eastern Serbia; Sanski Most in northwestern Bosnia and Herzegovina; and Ugljevik power plant and coal mine in the country’s northeast. 

“Most people living next to the mine are demanding resettlement and to get arable lands … to receive real compensation, to live somewhere else, to save their children, their lives and their health from the impossible living conditions,” says Zvezdan Kalmar from Serbia’s Center for Ecology and Sustainable Development (CEKOR).

 

 

Ecological destruction  

Testimonies, combined with observations by FIAN International, point to clear signs of ecological destruction, with devastating consequences for local people.  

This includes waterlogging, water shortages and lower agricultural yields. Air and water pollution and changes to wind patterns from large scale excavations were also reported, as well as crop diseases, damage to people’s houses and farm buildings and increased instances of respiratory illness, allergies and other serious health issues.   

Despite this, the governments of Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina have yet to act. There is a shocking lack of transparency, participation, and local democracy in both countries combined with repeated failures to conform to national and international legal frameworks. Local communities are rarely consulted and there is little evidence of credible environmental impact assessments.  

This is a clear breach of the states’ international human rights and environmental obligations and commitments including the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP), the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.  

FIAN International joins local civil society groups, CEKOR, CZZS, Aarhus Center in Bosnia and Herzegovia, and the communities in demanding urgent action from the governments of Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovia and the EU to address these serious environmental and human rights violations and to establish proper remedy mechanisms to compensate and resettle affected people.   

These two EU candidate countries must fully respect their national and international environmental and human rights obligations and commitments. And the EU must do more to address the sizeable challenges related to coal power in the region, and to implement the European Union Green Agenda for the Western Balkans, not least by making any future EU funding conditional on demonstrating respect for environmental and human rights.  

Read the briefing paper here.

For more information or media interviews please contact Tom Sullivan, FIAN International Communication & Campaigns: sullivan@fian.org / WhatsApp: +46 73 046 2753  

FIAN welcomes UN recommendations on China’s human rights obligations

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The expansion of China’s business and activities outside its territory has been accompanied by a considerable increase in human rights abuses and detrimental environmental impacts affecting local communities’ ability to feed themselves. FIAN and several civil society organizations strongly urged the CESCR to call on China to respect and protect the human rights of people affected by its overseas investments and business activities. Some organizations have also addressed the alarming fact that China continues to finance and construct new coal power plants abroad – despite a 2021 pledge to stop – to the detriment of local communities’ human rights.

The committee shared these concerns. It also noted the lack of adequate and effective measures to ensure that companies do not abuse ESC rights and called on China to hold its business entities, including sub-suppliers and financiers  to account for violations of ESC rights. It further called for the establishment of follow-up and monitoring mechanisms to investigate and sanction such harmful activities.

“The Concluding Observations clearly depart from those issued in 2014. There is a much stronger emphasis on human rights accountability, beyond due diligence,” for corporations said Stephan Backes, FIAN’s Extraterritorial Obligations Coordinator.

“FIAN also welcomes the committee’s effort to oblige China to guarantee access to remedy for people suffering from ESC violations caused by its breaches of human rights obligations overseas.”

The Committee recommended that China adopts necessary measures (both legislative and administrative) to ensure the legal liability of business entities, including subsidiaries and sub-suppliers and to be guided by the committee’s General Comment 24 which highlights states’ human rights obligations in the context of business activities.

And on the controversial issue of China continuing to fund coal power plants, the committee’s recommendation is straightforward: Suspend the construction of new power plants and stop ongoing financing of construction.

“These CESCR recommendations support RERI’s claims made over the past several years regarding the activities of Chinese companies in Serbia, specifically Zijin Copper DOO and Linglong Tire's Factory,“ said Hristina Vojvodi?, Senior Legal Officer at the Renewables and Environmental Regulatory Institute (RERI).

“As strategic partners of the Serbian Government, these companies enjoy a privileged position in the market, often avoiding labor and environmental regulations,“ she added.

“We hope these recommendations will encourage and persuade China to adopt appropriate measures which will guarantee protection from harmful effects stemming from Chinese business activities in Serbia.“

For media enquiries please contact Milena Dragovic milena.dragovic@reri.org.rs or Tom Sullivan sullivan@fian.org

China must respect human rights in overseas business operations

Posted on by fredsaxo

In a joint submission to the CESCR, FIAN International and several Serbian rights groups highlight China’s ongoing failure to respect the fundamental human rights of people affected by Chinese businesses in Serbia.

Since 2019, in the eastern city of Bor, 50,000 people have been exposed to dangerous levels of air pollution, when China’s Zijin Mining Group took over operation of a massive copper mining and smelting complex, one of Europe’s biggest copper mining operations. Serbia Zijin Mining, a subsidiary of Chinese state-backed Zijin Mining Group has since tripled production at the complex, increasing emissions of sulphur dioxide, heavy metals and other dangerous chemicals which have regularly exceeded permitted levels.

Higher risk for malignant tumors

“The Serbian authorities, including the court, are lenient when it comes to Chinese projects and investors because they claim that these activities are strategically important for the Republic of Serbia, closing their eyes on pollution, environmental damage, and the suffering of the local people,” said Hristina Vojvodic, Senior Legal Officer at the Renewables and Environmental Regulatory Institute (RERI).

“Instead, the government must prohibit the project and all activities until the approval of the competent authority is obtained,” she added, referring to the company’s lack of construction permits and environmental impact assessments.

An official study by the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Environmental Protection, and the Institute for Public Health of Serbia found a significantly higher risk for malignant tumors, illness, and death in Bor due to high pollution levels.

“The inhabitants of Bor are exposed to long-term inhalation of very high concentrations of arsenic … This results in a proportionately enormously increased risk of developing malignant diseases,” said Prof. Dragana Jovanovic, a pulmologist who has testified in air pollution cases.

Illegal discharges of waste and mining waters have polluted several local rivers of ecological importance for the region. Pyrite dumping, excavation and tailing disposal linked to the copper mining and smelting process have contaminated arable land, leaving farmers without an income. Some complain that they have been pushed off their land by Serbian authorities.

Land grabbing

“My family was initially offered an unacceptably low price for the purchase of our house and land. When we rejected the offer, we were immediately deprived of the land we cultivated, and [the land was] given to Zijin Mining,” said Miodrag Živkovic, a villager from Bor.

“There is an atmosphere of fear … People accept the company's lowest offers for expropriation of their property because they are aware that it will be confiscated anyway, and that they will lose their houses in which they live and [the] land they cultivate… Without land, we cannot earn from agriculture anymore, and we are not yet paid for the expropriated property.”

 

Serbia Zijin Mining has been convicted four times in the last two years for commercial offences but each time received fines below the legal minimum. During court hearings, the company acknowledged its unlawful actions in conducting mining activities without construction permits and approval of an environmental impact assessment. Local people affected by the mining complex have not received any compensation, despite the court rulings.

The CESCR issues recommendations to countries. During the last CESCR review of China in 2014, the committee raised concerns over human rights violations linked to overseas projects. It called on China to ensure that its companies, both state-owned and private sector, respect human rights when operating abroad. Nonetheless, human rights abuses and violations have continued unabated.

FIAN and its Serbian partners strongly call upon the CESCR to recommend to China to abide by its human rights obligations towards the people of Bor, including through effective regulation of their companies acting overseas and providing effective access to justice and remedy to the communities affected by actions or omissions of those companies.

For media enquiries please contact Milena Dragovic milena.dragovic@reri.org.rs or Tom Sullivan sullivan@fian.org