Indonesia’s Nickel Empire at the Expense of Human Rights

By: Apal Upadhyaya

Indonesia has more than quadrupled its nickel production in less than ten years, positioning the island nation to dominate the international nickel market. Nickel is necessary for the production of stainless steel and lithium-ion batteries found in essential everyday items like electric toothbrushes, laptops, computers, and cellphones. These batteries increasingly find use in next-generation technologies to power electric vehicles and e-bikes. Further, the demand for nickel is expected to increase 6-fold by 2030 fueled by growing demand for electric vehicles, a climate-friendly alternative form of transportation. Indonesia’s islands of Halmera and Sulawesi are home to the most identified nickel reserves in the country, making land there extremely lucrative for potential nickel mining companies. 

However, because of the land’s overwhelming value, thousands of Indonesian pepper farmers and other landowners have reported their land being seized by mining companies. Police intimidate locals and sell private lands well below market value with little negotiation. Furthermore, while the Indonesian government paints its nickel mining initiatives as green and energy friendly, the seizing and excavating of lands has resulted in thousands of acres of deforestation. The little regard and respect the Indonesian government and mining companies have for the Indonesian people whose ancestral lands have been seized blatantly violates property and human rights. While Indonesia has made it its goal to disrupt the international nickel market, it has lost its sense to protect the rights of its people. 

In Indonesia, formal land titles are difficult to acquire, especially for ancestral lands. In 2021, local governments began transferring land deeds to mining companies without the consent of the land’s residents. In one case, a widow and her family was given around $50 million Indonesian rupiah ($3,223) in exchange for the land. With the farm, the widow could make up to 6 million rupiah ($386) in one month from her harvests, and without her farm-based income, the widow has resorted to to selling cooked food at a stall to make a fraction of that income she would have made if she still had her land. Notably, these land deals and disputes are predatory and disproportionately affect Indonesia’s poorest populations. This exploitative approach to nickel mining is not going away. The number of land disputes increased from 1,520 conflicts between 2005-2015 to 2,939 conflicts between 2015-2023 under President Joko Widodo. This has affected 135,608 households, or close to one million people. 

On the island of Gelam, which is part of the Kendawangan conservation area zone, local government officials claim that land deeds were only given to mining companies because of residents’ requests. Residents refute this claim and argue that they never willingly gave up their lands to mining companies. Local Indonesian governments and officials have abused the lack of land deeds among their poorest populations to better position themselves for success in future nickel mining operations. The Indonesian government has recently become a controlling shareholder of  PT Vale Indonesia, one of the mining companies seizing land in Sulawesi. Thus, the government of Indonesia is complicit in this seizing of land affecting almost a million citizens. The government’s gross disregard of its own citizens violates the property rights and threatens the livelihoods of the millions of people who live off their land to gain a reliable income. 

The Indonesian government frames this focus on nickel as a push towards clean energy, but massive deforestation and pollution undermines the government of President Joko Widodo’s goals. Over 13,173 acres (5,331 hectares) of forest have been cleared on Halmahera, driving away deer and boars and polluting the water of local rivers. PT Weda Bay Nickel, the largest nickel miner on Halmahera, has deforested 3,600 acres of forest as of 2022. Widodo has sought to support developing industries, hasten recognition of land ownership, and slow deforestation. However, based on the actions of mining groups backed by the Indonesian government, deforestation in Indonesia still continues. 

While Indonesian nickel mining can make the nation a key player in the international nickel market, the violation of property and human rights to undertake such a project cannot be understated. Seizing and evicting people from ancestral lands for the sake of mine development is wrong. Excavating such lands in a way that pollutes key water sources and destabilizes the surrounding environment is wrong. Indonesian policymakers must stop issuing permits to mine and hold leaders accountable for violations of community members’ rights. If safeguards and restrictions do not materialize, the people of these islands will be displaced and the environment will be destroyed, both reduced to an afterthought of innovation. 

Chaos in ECOWAS and Regionalism’s Regression: America’s Role

By: Wyatt Dayhoff

The Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS, was founded in 1975 to advance economic integration across fifteen West African states as they struggled to cope with skyrocketing debt and the enduring legacy of colonialism. When civil wars and political instability hampered its efforts, the organization pivoted to facilitate peace and security in the region. Since then, it has helped end numerous political crises, playing a large role in the region’s complete democratic stability from 2015-2020, and has been hailed as the most successful model of regional governance in Africa.

Then, on January 28th, 2024, three of its founding members declared their resignation from the bloc, sending shockwaves through the organization and the continent as a whole. Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, all engulfed by coups since 2020, blamed the organization for kowtowing to foreign powers and betraying the roots of the organization. 

Why did they leave? All members of the new “Alliance of Sahel States” (AES) had been facing scrutiny, both verbal and economic, of their junta-led regimes from ECOWAS and Western powers prior to their secession. Mali, for example, was slapped with sanctions by the bloc while it endeavored to recover from COVID- and Ukraine-induced shocks, causing devastating inflation and price hikes for basic commodities. These sanctions, in tandem with an apparent failure to prevent terrorism, turned public sentiment against ECOWAS, which is now seen by many as a puppet of the West. The Alliance’s grievances, then, are not surprising, and ECOWAS was unable to negotiate a return to democracy as it had previously done so well. This followed multiple failures to intervene when other West African leaders (Ouattara in Cote D’Ivoire and Conde in Ghana) used manipulative tactics to receive extra terms. 

Even before this landmark event, experts noted that ECOWAS was at a crossroads. Divided and discombobulated, the bloc was hemorrhaging authority and legitimacy. Now, its raison d’etre teeters on the brink: outside of its confines, the organization cannot hope to even attempt to restore democracy to the three nations, much less facilitate trade. The AES will likely suffer, too; on February 19, Niger defaulted up to $520 million in debt, and without access to regional markets the nation will plunge even deeper into economic strife. Sahelian border closures will recreate the very problems that ECOWAS was formed to solve. ECOWAS lifted existing sanctions on February 25th to account for the default, but it still remains unable to provide broader support given Niger’s lack of membership.

The future paints a grim picture for the West African region, reflecting larger concerns about regionalism in developing nations. ASEAN, arguably the most influential regional bloc, was fractured by Myanmar’s 2022 coup and remains paralyzed. Regionalism and multilateralism, concepts that showed such promise in the 2010s, now lay tattered after COVID’s enormous economic and political impact. Instead, neo-Cold War thinking has surged, with countries joining either the Chinese or the Western camp. While China and the United States are working together to create a debt relief package for emerging markets, bandwagoning with one party or the other has become the norm, making aid and support contingent on politics. 

The world can ill afford a continuation of this trend. Democracy has declined precipitously in recent years and remains shaky, economic growth has stagnated in many countries, and global income inequality is at the same levels as the early 20th century. In other words, developing nations are not developing, and the lack of a regionally-based framework for cooperation and resistance to outside pressures certainly adds to the strain. 

While the states of ECOWAS must work better in tandem, the United States has also been complicit in such stagnation, repeatedly burying coalition-led plans in the United Nations and imposing neoliberal economic deregulation that has lowered living standards. In pursuing its own economic interests, America has often neglected the needs of others, and without a profound shift in how it approaches developing nations, it will continue to draw the ire of those it tries to court. 

American partnership, not peonage, is needed. Otherwise, organizations like ECOWAS will continue to falter under adversity because positions taken become attached to big brother. Given its size, it is difficult for America to not loom large and lurk in the back of decision-making. That said, acknowledging that intervention has and continues to fail is needed for American policymakers to help actualize a more inclusive future that benefits both American and its partners. 

Until then, we can only hope that the trust destroyed during the pandemic can be reignited going forward. West Africa has come a long way already, and effective institutions, if maintained, could secure the livelihoods of some of the youngest, fastest-growing populations in the world.

How Nagorno-Karabakh Undermines Western Justifications in Ukraine

By: Danial Butt

The Republic of Artsakh, better known by its Russian name of Nagorno-Karabakh, is a piece of land in the Caucasus that has been disputed by Armenia and Azerbaijan for decades. The vast majority of Nagorno-Karabakh’s population is Armenian, and its people were effectively operating as their own state, wholly autonomous from their neighbors. Due to Soviet imperialist policies, it was considered part of its Azerbaijan region instead of Armenia with arbitrary border lines comparable to that of colonialist regimes. When the Soviet Union collapsed, Nagorno-Karabakh was then recognized by the rest of the world as part of the modern day independent Azerbaijan. But mere recognition in itself is not a legally binding way to determine land claims. Nagorno-Karabakh itself seceded from the Soviet Union to form its own republic in 1991. Meanwhile, Azerbaijan not only claimed the territory for itself but has also been rewriting its history to claim that Armenians are not indigenous to the region but are invaders that need to be expelled. 

Sound familiar? Like Ukraine, Nagorno-Karabakh is a key region in Eastern Europe that is being disputed under the same tactics of historical revisionism and blatant disregard for international laws. While the Western world has very much been invested into the War in Ukraine over the past few years, it has comparatively been uninvolved in protecting the people of Nagorno-Karabakh. Within the past year, Azerbaijan’s offensive effectively expelled over ninety nine percent of the native Armenian population from Nagorno-Karabakh. Various global organizations have labeled this catastrophe as a genocide, perpetuating the legitimacy of “might makes right” policies. Conversely, Western leadership itself has largely ignored if not exacerbated the conflict, selling weapons to the region for decades instead of properly negotiating peace between any of the countries involved. Such actions expose the hypocrisy of the so-called democratic powers, showing how they are only fixated on protecting human rights when they have to protect their own interests.

While the UN offices in Azerbaijan have reported that over 100,000 people fled Nagorno-Karabakh, they also reported that they “saw no damage” present in their investigations. But such claims have been disputed. Notably, Azerbaijan was criticized for obstructing UNESCO investigations into Nagorno-Karabakh. If they truly did “[see] no damage”, then it begs the question: why would Azerbaijan act as if there is anything to hide? With Azerbaijan’s long standing policies of declaring Nagorno-Karabakh as for themselves, there is no doubt that Azerbaijan will take the opportunity to tear down any evidence of Armenian ties to the land.

While it still operated as its own country, Nagorno-Karabakh itself had been relatively prosperous. For example, Nagorno-Karabakh had higher annual wages than Azerbaijan. Unfortunately, it is nigh impossible for such conditions to continue in the region, as Azerbaijan operates under authoritarian rule without free and fair elections. One may have expected Armenia’s ally in Russia to protect their interests and fellow people in Nagorno-Karabakh, but Russian fears of a democracy growing on their doorstep rendered this impossible as Armenian politics have recently transitioned towards Western democracy. Moreover, Russia has instead been galvanizing their diplomatic ties with Azerbaijan and Turkey. Both of these countries have been attempting to take control of the Zangezur Corridor, which goes through Armenia’s Syunik province. The loss of this land would hinder Armenia’s sovereignty even further if not entirely. But even without ownership of the corridor being settled, Armenia has alarmingly been referring to Azerbaijan’s escalating attacks on their borders as a sign of war to come.

It would of course be in the West’s best interest to aid Armenia and the refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh now, but there is a worrying problem that it is too little too late. Ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh has already been accomplished with Russia and arguably even UN offices turning a blind eye to it. Continuing to recognize Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan instead of its own country not only served to legitimize the annexation but has effectively signaled that Armenia proper is now ripe for the taking. By this very logic, Palestine and Taiwan can freely be annexed as well as they are not recognized either. Much of Palestine has already been displaced while Taiwan is still in a precarious situation. And of course, Ukraine itself is still in imminent threat of being taken over. Even if Russia does not succeed now, it has already been proven that the West cares about protecting democracy as much as Russia cares about Armenia.