The first study day focused on the regulation of mining activity and the risks it generates during the operational phase. The second day addressed the rehabilitation of mining sites and the sharing of responsibilities after mine closure. This session, one of the highlights of the conference, featured several presentations on the challenges of the post-mining period, such as the long-term management of decontamination obligations and the heritage conservation of historic mining sites. The issue of waste management was also raised, particularly concerning the legal foundations on which the administration could rely to take the necessary measures to ensure the recycling of extractive waste.
Contribution of the JPEC Project
The JPEC project of the PEPR Sous-sol programme was able to present its research at this event, notably through presentations by Stéphanie Muller (BRGM) and Florian Leprovost (BRGM) on life cycle assessment and its place in European texts related to raw materials, as well as by Ibrahim Sanogo (BRGM) on standards developed by stakeholders in the extractive industry.
Ibrahim Sanogo (BRGM)
PEPR Sous-sol
Regulating without legislating: mining in the age of private normativity
In a presentation entitled “Regulating without Legislating: Mining in the Age of Private Normativity”, Ibrahim Sanogo, a postdoctoral researcher at BRGM, presented his research on the growing role of private normativity in the mining sector.
In certain national contexts where the legal framework is incomplete or not particularly binding, private actors develop their own norms and standards. This “soft law” manifests itself through the adoption of technical standards at the initiative of operators in an economic sector – which may be made mandatory by national legislation – voluntary codes of conduct, sector-specific certifications, and commitments in the area of corporate social and environmental responsibility (CSR). The effectiveness of these self-regulatory mechanisms raises questions about both their potential for innovation and their limitations in terms of democratic oversight and enforcement.
This study underlines that the standards used by actors in extractive industries are notably intended to facilitate commercial exchanges throughout value chains. Indeed, compliance with a voluntary standard (certification mechanisms, harmonisation standards, etc.) makes it easier to demonstrate that a company’s activities conform to certain social and environmental requirements.
Stephanie Muller (BRGM) et Florian Leprovost (BRGM)
PEPR Sous-sol
The use of life cycle assessment (LCA) in EU law on critical raw materials
In this context, the growing use of life cycle assessment (LCA) in EU law is a good example of the effects of the progressive regulation of the consequences of business or organisational activities on their value chains. In this regard, Stéphanie Muller and Florian Leprovost presented their work on LCA and EU law relating to critical raw materials.
Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a decision-support tool that measures the potential environmental performance of products or organisations throughout their life cycle. The promise of LCA is to make it possible to compare the impacts of products or organisations with similar functions. In the field of mineral resources, Regulation 2023/1542 on batteries and Regulation 2024/1252 on critical raw materials provide for the imposition on companies placing these products on the market of a declaration of their carbon or environmental footprint respectively. These provisions are intended, in particular, to facilitate the exercise of due diligence by the companies subject to them. The methodological challenges associated with the implementation of these obligations are diverse: life cycle stages included within the scope of the environmental footprint, granularity of the data used, methodologies for comparing impacts, treatment of multifunctionality, etc.
The ULCO conference provided a valuable opportunity for exchanges on the evolution of legislation governing mining activity, from extraction to rehabilitation. In a context of energy and digital transitions where demand for critical minerals is growing, these legal challenges are more than ever at the heart of societal debate.
The proceedings of this conference will be published by éditions Mare et Martin (end of 2026).