I. Introduction
Mongolia has long been seen as a beacon of hope for human rights in Asia.Footnote 1 It has managed to maintain its status as a ‘free’ country—a status enjoyed by only a few other countries in the region—in the recent Freedom in the World Index, underscoring its efforts in promoting and safeguarding political rights and civil liberties.Footnote 2 Since 2021, the country has passed the Law on the Legal Status of Human Rights Defenders (also known as the HRD Protection Law)Footnote 3 and the National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights 2023–2027 (NAP),Footnote 4 demonstrating its commitment to institutionalize human rights into national policies. More broadly, these commitments are reflected in Mongolia’s 1992 Constitution, which places natural resources under state protection (Article 6.1), and explicitly mentions that the government cannot allow private ownership of ‘pastures and areas under public and special use’ and entrusts the government to undertake measures to protect, sustain and restore the environment and natural resources (Article 38).Footnote 5 It also guarantees every citizen the right to a healthy and safe environment and to be protected against environmental pollution and ecological imbalance. This right is operationalised through the Law on Environmental Protection 1995, the 2012 revision of environmental laws (including the Law on Environmental Impact Assessment), and sectoral instruments such as the Minerals Law and the 2009 law prohibiting mineral exploration and exploitation in water-source and forested areas.Footnote 6
Progress aside, the country’s economic policy continues to be at odds with human rights principles, creating friction among various stakeholders with competing interests and putting the lives and livelihoods of communities in jeopardy.Footnote 7 The extractives sector has profoundly shaped the economic landscape of resource-rich Mongolia, particularly in valuable resources such as gold, coal, copper and iron.Footnote 8 Despite accounting for roughly a quarter of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP),Footnote 9 the rapid expansion of mining activities has raised concerns around environmental sustainability, land degradation, biodiversity loss, and the deterioration in the quality of life and displacement of nomadic herder communities. These communities are mobile pastoralists who derive their livelihood from raising livestock and move seasonally across communal rangelands to graze their herds, a way of life that has sustained a substantial share of Mongolia’s population for centuries.Footnote 10
This piece analyses this impasse, exploring the extractives sector in the country, the violations it perpetrates and the resulting challenges faced by communities. It also looks at obstacles arising from such diverse stakeholder interests while exploring opportunities in promoting responsible mining and improving the larger picture of business and human rights in Mongolia.
II. Mining developments in Mongolia
As of March 2026, Mongolia had 2,831 valid licences for mineral exploration and extraction, covering 7.259 million hectares, or approximately 4.5 per cent of its territory.Footnote 11 The country stands at a critical juncture between its national economic interests and the rights of affected communities, with the extractives sector playing a pivotal role in shaping its development trajectory. As Mongolia grapples with the challenges and opportunities of rapid economic growth, it continues to lean on mining, failing to acknowledge and address the costs associated with such over-reliance on the sector.Footnote 12
Mining—which already contributes 90 per cent of the country’s exports—features heavily in the government’s ambitious plan to double GDP per capita to US$10,000 before the end of the decade.Footnote 13 This has resulted in the government heavily prioritising foreign investments in mineral exploration and extraction. Most recently, on 7 February 2024, Germany entered into a Strategic Partnership with Mongolia, with a commitment to intensify cooperation on a number of issues, including natural resource exploration and extraction.Footnote 14 A similar agreement was struck between France and Mongolia in October 2023, where a landmark US$1.7 billion investment was approved for French government-owned Orano Mining to mine uranium in southwestern Mongolia.Footnote 15 This is in addition to another €400,000 (US$422,120) project between the two countries to explore a potentially lithium-rich basin in Mongolia.Footnote 16
These partnerships come against the backdrop of increasing evidence of human rights and environmental rights violations perpetrated by mining companies against nomadic herder communities. One of the most notorious cases is related to the Oyu Tolgoi mining project, which was once the world’s largest mining exploration project at its inception and has been the subject of multiple complaints and sustained criticism concerning its impacts on herders’ access to land, water and traditional livelihoods. Complaints submitted by Khanbogd herders to the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman in 2012 and 2013Footnote 17 show how project infrastructure, water diversion, resettlement and compensation processes can undermine herders’ customary use of pastureland, water sources and culturally significant sites.Footnote 18
In recent years, there has also been an increasing number of cases of human rights defenders (HRDs) being targeted for advocating against mining operations in Mongolia. Most emblematic is the case of Sukhgerel Dugersuren, the Executive Director of Oyu Tolgoi Watch (OT Watch), a non-governmental organisation (NGO) which monitors the impacts of mining projects—including the Oyu Tolgoi mine—on the rights of communities. As a result of her vocal opposition to large-scale development projects including mining, Sukhgerel was accused in 2022 of violating Criminal Code Article 19.4, which addresses ‘illegal cooperation with [a] foreign intelligence agency [or] agent’.Footnote 19 Since then, Sukhgerel and her lawyers have been subjected to continuous judicial harassment and a targeted smear campaign discrediting their reputation.Footnote 20 In June 2023, UN experts raised renewed concern after the government confirmed the investigation, warning that the case appeared connected to her exercise of freedom of expression on environmental and social risks.Footnote 21
These developments come at a time when the legal framework in Mongolia is also undergoing changes, as witnessed by multiple amendments to the Law on Land 2002, the latest being in 2023,Footnote 22 and the recent proposal to the Minerals Law of Mongolia, which was tabled in May 2026.Footnote 23 These reforms bear directly on the allocation, possession and use of land, including pastureland on which herders depend and on the licensing of exploration, mining and mineral beneficiation. In order to ensure that the amendments do not compromise the rights of communities, there have been efforts by impacted herders to actively participate and provide inputs to the proposed changes, but it remains to be seen if the government will respect people’s voices.Footnote 24
The sector has also been plagued by corruption, exposing wider problems of governance, public trust and accountability in the country’s management of mineral wealth. For example, in 2022, executives of the state-owned mining company Erdenes-Tavan Tolgoi JSC were accused of involvement in the theft of coal destined for China, representing an estimated US$13 billion in lost revenue. The incident sparked mass protests of mostly young adults who tried to break into the State Palace in Ulaanbaatar to demand accountability and the need to address political dysfunction and the culture of corruption in the country.Footnote 25 More recent anti-corruption monitoring suggests that the scandal prompted reform efforts, although enforcement gaps, weak whistleblower protection and risks of political interference continue to limit accountability.Footnote 26
III. Environmental harms and the struggles of herder communities
Amidst this troubling landscape, and in order to contribute to knowledge production on an otherwise underreported issue, FORUM-ASIAFootnote 27 and the Centre for Human Rights and Development (CHRD)Footnote 28 undertook field research on the impact of mining operations in three soums (districts) in Dornogovi aimag (a province in Mongolia). The findings highlighted a bleak yet unsurprising picture: mining operations continue to neglect environmental considerations and infringe upon the human rights of individuals residing in mining-affected areas. More broadly, the research illuminated how unchecked corporate greed, combined with government inaction, can have devastating consequences for local communities and the environment.Footnote 29
The lives and livelihoods of nomadic herder communities are deeply intertwined with their land and natural resources, which are constantly exposed to harm caused by mining activities. This dependence on natural resources is not only a matter of livelihood and survival, but a centuries-old way of life.Footnote 30 Herders draw on rivers, streams, springs, wells, and other surface and ground waters both for domestic use—such as drinking, cooking, cleaning, and purifying—and for watering their animals. Pastureland, in turn, is used for grazing livestock, which provide not only transport, draught power and a means of mobility, but also milk and dairy, meat, cashmere, wool, hide and dung used as fuel, alongside other products that supply vital cash income.Footnote 31 In the three soums, namely Dalanjargalan, Ulaanbadrakh and Khatanbulag, mining activities were shown to have contributed to the shrinking of herders’ pastureland, a decrease in air quality due to dust pollution and a deterioration in the quality of their livestock, subsequently impacting their livelihoods. Additionally, communities complained of experiencing respiratory issues and weakened immune systems, also raising specific concerns about women’s reproductive health, reporting an increase in miscarriages and birth abnormalities since the mines commenced operations.Footnote 32 Furthermore, herders reported severe contamination of water sources, making them unfit for consumption. Accelerated desertification and biodiversity loss were also concerns.Footnote 33
Chronic information gaps, inadequate communication and lack of meaningful engagement with communities were also reported as a major challenge. This was notably observed during the environmental impact assessment (EIA), a process mandated by law, principally the Law on Environmental Impact Assessment 2012,Footnote 34 where mining companies failed to involve herders, thereby undermining transparency and violating their right to free, prior and informed consent (FPIC).Footnote 35 Additionally, mining companies were reported to employ deceptive tactics, such as the use of attendance sheets from meetings as approval for EIAs without genuine community consultations.Footnote 36 This underscores a broader issue of the absence of mandatory human rights and environment due diligence (mHREDD) in business operations across Mongolia, as there is no legal obligation on companies to systematically identify, prevent, mitigate and account for adverse human rights and environmental impacts stemming from their activities.Footnote 37
The field research further revealed that the independence of the judiciary was called into question. In one instance, a veterinarian who identified radioactive material as the cause of livestock poisoning was fired. Meanwhile, in another case, the judicial system was used to target those who voiced their grievances against mining operations or government policies.Footnote 38 Such lack of accountability and the government’s complicity have forced local communities to organize themselves to protect their nomadic way of life. Attempts were reportedly made to silence HRDs using tactics of judicial harassment, threats, intimidation and violence.Footnote 39 In one instance, a woman human rights defender (WHRD) said that during a protest against mining operations in her area, the police tried to detain her, but eventually gave up when villagers surrounded her to prevent the police from arresting her.Footnote 40 In another example, multiple HRDs reported being sued for voicing their grievances and requesting the halting and revocation of mining licences.Footnote 41 NGO staff also reported being arbitrarily audited and interrogated by the police for being funded by some international organisations.Footnote 42
It is noteworthy that in Ulaanbadrakh soum–which reported some of the most severe cases of violations among the three soums–the uranium mine is run by Badrakh Energy, whose parent company is Orano Mining.Footnote 43 This is the same French government-owned Orano Mining that signed a US$1.7 billion deal to mine uranium in October 2023. Given the company’s dismal human rights track record in Mongolia, such a large-scale investment raises serious concerns regarding its potential impact in the coming years. These harms can be measured against the protections owed under both national safeguards and international standards. At the domestic level, this includes the constitutional right to a healthy and safe environment, and the Law on Environmental Impact Assessment 2012,Footnote 44 which requires EIA, environmental audit and public consultation before a project proceeds. At the international level, the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) set out the corporate responsibility to respect human rights, including a duty to carry out human rights due diligence to identify, prevent and mitigate adverse impacts and to enable remediation,Footnote 45 while the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises articulate comparable expectations of risk-based due diligence and meaningful stakeholder engagement, strengthened by the FPIC standard for affected communities.Footnote 46 Measured against these established standards, a large-scale uranium investment by an operator with the track record described above raises clear due-diligence and remediation concerns that neither the company nor the State has yet been shown to have addressed.
IV. Opportunities in promoting responsible business conduct and protecting human rights
A. National and international guidelines and legislation
Evidence suggests that increased investments in resource-rich Mongolia could result in significant backsliding related to the country’s human rights and environment.Footnote 47 However, despite continued challenges in ensuring corporate and state accountability, there is still hope for the country, which is regarded as ‘free’ compared to its Asian neighbours, with political rights and civil liberties fairly institutionalized.Footnote 48 This provides a unique chance for strategic interventions that protect, promote and support the rights of communities against destructive mining operations.
At the national level, Mongolia already has a robust legal framework governing mineral exploration, extraction and environmental protection. The key instruments include the Minerals Law, which sets out licensing and licence-holders’ environmental obligations including rehabilitation and reclamation;Footnote 49 the Law on Environmental Protection 1995, which establishes the ‘polluter pays’ principle and the duty to restore damaged environments;Footnote 50 the Law on Environmental Impact Assessment 2012, which requires EIAs, environmental audits and public participation;Footnote 51 the Law on Water;Footnote 52 and the 2009 law prohibiting mineral exploration and exploitation in river-source areas, water-body protection zones and forested areas.Footnote 53 The main barrier preventing their translation from paper to practice is that the laws suffer from ambiguous language and are notorious for being amended frequently, creating confusion and failing to provide consistency and clarity to stakeholders. For example, the Law on Licensing was amended 69 times before its replacement in 2022, while the Minerals Law classifies minerals as strategic, common, or conventional—a distinction governing how exploration and extraction proceed—yet sets no clear criteria for what makes a mineral ‘strategic’,Footnote 54 while the Minerals Law classifies minerals as strategic, common, or conventional, a distinction that governs how exploration and extraction proceed, yet sets no clear criteria for what makes a mineral ‘strategic’.Footnote 55 With concerted efforts from lawmakers and civil society, more decisive and nuanced laws could significantly improve the public’s understanding of them and their subsequent use and implementation.
Notably, Mongolia’s commitment to responsible business and human rights principles is demonstrated by the recent adoption of the NAP (2023–2027), a policy framework structured around the three pillars of the UNGPs—the State duty to protect, the corporate responsibility to respect, and access to remedy—while setting out government commitments and action points across areas such as labour rights, the environment, and the extractives sector. It presents a significant opportunity to move beyond the NAP being a checkbox exercise as well as to mainstream human rights considerations into business operations. By developing robust implementation strategies, establishing effective monitoring mechanisms and ensuring meaningful stakeholder engagement, the NAP can serve as a roadmap for responsible business practices across sectors. The drafting of the NAP was informed by the National Baseline Assessment (NBA), which involved a comprehensive baseline study identifying the negative impacts of business activities on human rights as well as gaps, challenges and priority areas.Footnote 56 The NBA was informed by extensive consultations and meetings with government institutions, business enterprises, civil society organisations, community representatives and other stakeholders.Footnote 57
However, some of the recommendations made in the NBA—focused on strengthening the rights of communities affected by mining operations and ensuring robust protections for HRDs who play a crucial role in advocating for these rights—seem to have been overlooked or insufficiently addressed in the final version of the NAP. For example, it fails to adequately address the critical issue of ensuring FPIC of local communities during EIAs for mining projects. Likewise, it falls short of ensuring strong mechanisms for obtaining FPIC from affected communities before project approvals.Footnote 58
A key barrier identified by the NBA was the lack of sufficient evidence directly linking mining activities to the negative impacts on people’s lives and livelihoods. To address this issue, the NBA recommended shifting the burden of proof onto the defendants (mining companies) rather than affected communities.Footnote 59 However, the NAP appears to have failed to incorporate this crucial recommendation, perpetuating the existing power imbalance and evidentiary challenges faced by local communities seeking accountability and redress from powerful mining corporations.
The NAP also fails to provide any safeguards to ensure that HRDs and civil society can operate in a safe and enabling environment, free from threats, intimidation, judicial harassment, strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPP) or other forms of retaliation. The NBA particularly highlighted how Mongolian law fails to provide adequate safeguards for HRDs against SLAPP suits.Footnote 60 However, instead of recommending stronger protections and revisions to relevant laws such as the Mongolian Criminal Code, the NAP entirely overlooks this issue. There is no prohibition on filing a counterclaim based on the use of strategies to silence or threaten public participation. The legal framework lacks provisions to protect organisations whose commercial reputation might be affected when acting in the public interest or defending human rights and freedoms. The current legal system in Mongolia does not prevent plaintiffs from taking pre-emptive legal action against potential defendants, which can have a chilling effect on free speech and public participation. These omissions in the NAP represent a missed opportunity to address the vulnerabilities of HRDs and civil society in Mongolia. By failing to propose reforms to the existing legal framework, the NAP, despite being non-binding, misses its opportunity to set the direction for future legislation and leaves a significant gap in the protection of those who work to defend human rights and promote public interest causes.
These issues are compounded by the existence of repressive laws that hinder freedom of assembly and association. Specifically, the Law on Organizing Demonstrations and Public Gatherings, enacted in 1994, imposes significant barriers to peaceful protest by requiring advance notification to district governors, often resulting in permit denials and the subsequent classification of protests as ‘illegal’ by police authorities. This disproportionately impacts HRDs and those critical of the status quo.
The NAP does include a forward-looking provision that seeks to establish individual corporate responsibility for company personnel in preventing and addressing human rights violations and adverse environmental impacts resulting from their operations. This provision recognizes the critical role that corporate leaders play in shaping a company’s policies, practices and culture of human rights, accountability and environmental sustainability. Proposed measures in the NAP also include drafting legislation related to such provisions, although its actual implementation remains to be seen and assessed.
The multi-stakeholder and decentralized approach to the NBA—a best practice when drafting NAPsFootnote 61—is a wasted opportunity if the findings from the NBA are not integrated into the provisions of the NAP effectively. Since the NAP is a living document subject to periodic review and revision, it provides opportunities to continue advocating for the inclusion of stronger provisions and measures to address the rights of local communities, HRDs and the environment.
At the international level, the United Nations is currently leading efforts to draft a legally binding instrument (LBI) to regulate the human rights impacts of transnational corporations and businesses. It has mandated the Open-Ended Intergovernmental Working Group (OEIGWG) to elaborate such a treaty.Footnote 62 The OEIGWG released the latest draft of the LBI in July 2023, which not only provides for binding obligations for businesses to respect human rights but also includes victim-centric approaches, including provisions for due diligence, access to remedy and corporate responsibilities for human rights violations.Footnote 63
Mongolian civil society could play a key role in advocating for the passing of the LBI as well as the inclusion of stronger victim-centric provisions. Once adopted, it could be used as a guiding framework to review and strengthen its domestic laws and regulations related to business and human rights, ensuring alignment with international norms and best practices. Additionally, two complementary international instruments could serve as a roadmap for national policies in Mongolia. First is the UNGPs, which were adopted in 2011. It provides a set of 31 principles for governments and companies to guide business operations and prevent and address human rights abuses.Footnote 64 The second is the resolution on ‘The Human Right to a Clean, Healthy and Sustainable Environment’, which was adopted by the General Assembly in 2022.Footnote 65 This resolution gives international recognition to a similar right already guaranteed in Mongolia’s Constitution, and offers an authoritative reference point for developing, interpreting and strengthening domestic environmental protections in the context of business activities, including mining. While these principles and guidelines are not legally binding, using them as a baseline for developing legislation at the national level could help bring implementation in line with international standards.
B. Community-centric capacity building and advocacy
Mining-affected communities are often left to confront far better-resourced business activities and state processes with limited technical, legal and institutional support.Footnote 66 Given the financial, procedural and evidentiary imbalance that comes with this, communities are constantly challenged to translate lived harms to pastureland, water, health and mobility into forms legible to administrative, judicial and corporate processes, often while facing information gaps and limited access to independent technical expertise. A community-centric strategy should therefore serve as a means of correcting procedural inequality through supporting community members in documenting impacts, understanding domestic and international safeguards, accessing available protection and accountability mechanisms and engaging company and state processes without retaliation.
Currently, Mongolia’s relatively open civic space and active civil society provide an important basis for such work.Footnote 67 Through coordinated efforts from civil society organisations, impacted communities can be better equipped with the knowledge and skills to understand and advocate for their rights effectively using targeted and needs-based capacity strengthening initiatives. This presents another opportunity for sustained change through a bottom-up approach and more investments in communities.
In addition to the NAP, the HRD Protection Law led to the creation of a Committee on Human Rights Defenders within the National Human Rights Commission of Mongolia (NHRCM).Footnote 68 The Committee’s functions include receiving complaints and collecting evidence of violations against HRDs, identifying the protection needs of HRDs and providing a subsequent risk assessment. The HRD Committee is also tasked with promoting the HRD Protection Law through trainings and campaigns.Footnote 69 These training programs are intended to target government bodies, legal institutions, police, and prosecutors, aiming to increase awareness of HRDs and their rights. Meanwhile, awareness-raising efforts and dissemination of information on the implementation of the law among civil society, NGOs and HRDs can also help ensure that the protection framework is understood by those it is meant to serve. If implemented properly, the trainings and campaigns could bring about significant positive developments in the awareness and protection of HRDs.
By leveraging opportunities and enacting strategic interventions, Mongolia can make notable progress in promoting responsible business practices, protecting human rights and ensuring that economic development is balanced with environmental protection and the rights of local communities.
V. Conclusion
Mongolia has made promising strides in promoting and protecting human rights, the rights of HRDs and the environment. However, systemic challenges remain, particularly in the extractives sector, which continues to cause environmental degradation and violations of the rights of local communities, especially herders.
The government’s focus on economic growth continues to come at a high cost. With the possibility of increased investments in mining—combined with existing challenges such as weak governance, limited regulatory capacity and the vilification of HRDs—the country runs the risk of going down a dangerous path. However, Mongolia’s current political and economic climate also makes this a perfect time to change policies and practices for the better. The country has the chance to ensure a sustained, community-centric and inclusive approach to corporate accountability, serving as a roadmap for responsible business practices across sectors.
Competing interests
The authors work for the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA). Prarthana Rao co-authored the reports ‘From Dreams to Dust: Examining the Impact of Mining on Herder Communities in Mongolia’ and ‘One Year Later—From Dreams to Dust: Examining the Impact of Mining on Herder Communities in Mongolia’.
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