Indigenous Peoples Demand Reform in Global Systems for Commodity Certification

Thirty-two indigenous representatives from thirteen countries have issued a declaration calling for fundamental reforms to global commodity certification schemes. The declaration which was launched during the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in April was the outcome of a 3-day Global Convening on Certification and associated Audit Systems impacting Indigenous peoples’ Rights, which was held in Jakarta in March 2025.

Speaking at the launch Robeliza Halip, the Executive Director of the Right Energy Partnership with Indigenous peoples (REP), highlighted that

In too many cases, these certification seals are being used as rubber stamps for human rights abuses. While companies display these badges of honour, our communities face increasing violence, land grabs, and the destruction of our sacred sites.”

Robeliza Halip speaking at the launch of the Declaration. Photo credits: Right Energy Partnership with Indigenous Peoples (REP)

Read press statement and the Declaration in English, Bahasa Indonesia, French, Kmer and Spanish 

The Jakarta Convening was co-organised by Forest Peoples Programme (FPP), REP, the Asia Indigenous Peoples Network on Extractive Industries and Energy (AIPNEE), and the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights. It provided a unique opportunity for indigenous representatives from Asia, Latin America and Africa to share the diverse experiences of their peoples with certification schemes spanning a range of internationally sold commodities (e.g. palm oil, timber, minerals, aquaculture products, carbon credits and renewable energy) whose production relies on lands and resources from their territories. What emerged was a shared understanding of the weaknesses, risks and strengths associated with these schemes and the identification of actions required to address their shortcomings and to enhance positive practices.

Numerous accounts were shared of how indigenous peoples and their allies had actively engaged with certification schemes, in some cases over three decades, to ensure rights safeguards aimed at preventing adverse impacts associated with commodity production were embedded into their standards. However, despite important gains on paper, most of the cases shared at the Convening painted a bleak picture in which certification processes were repeatedly failing to guarantee respect for those rights in practice. Audit and verification processes in particular regarded by many as falling far short of the promise of assessing and overseeing compliance with international human rights and environmental standards.

In response to this reality, the Declaration addresses recommendations directly to certification schemes and the certification and verification and validation bodies that audit compliance with their standards, as well as to states, companies, investors and UN bodies. 

Key demands include:

• Reforming the governance of certification schemes to ensure they all include indigenous representatives in decision-making;
• Ensuring social auditors undergo mandatory training on indigenous peoples’ histories, realities and rights and have experience working directly with indigenous peoples;
• Reducing the potential for conflicts of interest by eliminating direct financial linkages between auditors and the companies seeking certification;
• Implementing mutually agreed remedial actions to address ongoing human rights violations, including unresolved failures to obtain FPIC tied to existing operations. 

Background to the Convening 

There is significant documentation of the negative impacts indigenous peoples experience as a result of the production of internationally sold commodities that rely on their lands and resources. Such commodities include palm oil, timber, pulp and paper, minerals, and increasingly also carbon credits and renewable energy. In response to this increasing body of evidence exposing how consumer products are tainted with human rights violations and environmental destruction, consumer demand for ethically and sustainably sourced products has grown. As a consequence, businesses have turned to certification schemes to label their products as ‘ethical’ or ‘sustainable’. 

Indigenous peoples have participated to varying degrees in the development of several of these certification standards. As a result, to different extents, those standards incorporate elements of key international human rights law provisions protecting indigenous peoples’ rights - such as respect for customary land rights and FPIC, participatory impact assessments, fair and equitable benefit sharing and remedy. However, the credibility of these schemes depends not only on the language of their standards but also on how effectively they are implemented. One of the key problems that has been repeatedly raised by indigenous peoples and civil society organisations is the failure of auditing processes to verify compliance with international human rights and environmental standards affirmed in the schemes. Criticism has, for example, highlighted issues with: 

• the financial link between entities that are being audited and the entities carrying out the audits;
• the auditors' expertise and knowledge of indigenous peoples’ rights under international human rights standards;
• the extent to which auditors are rotated;
• the level of detail against which indigenous peoples’ rights, including FPIC are audited;
• how indigenous peoples are notified and engaged in audits, highlighting that notifications are often treated as a tick-box exercise rather than ensuring genuine consultation or input;
• audit transparency, including in relation to planning, field visits and sharing of full audit reports;
• the extent to which indigenous peoples have a role in governance structures of the certification schemes that regulate the audits;
• the ineffectiveness of grievance mechanisms to address issues that arise in relation to auditing or audited projects, facilitates or supply chains.

Addressing these and other issues in certification and associated audit processes is increasingly critical given the regression in State regulation of corporate activities associated with the current geopolitical context. This regression is happening despite important advances in human rights and environmental standards over the past decades, including on the rights of indigenous peoples. It is resulting in a greater reliance on voluntary certification and assessment schemes, and individual policies of corporations, to ensure respect for those standards and the rights they aim to protect.

See this background paper for further information.