Policy Matters - Do commodity certification systems uphold indigenous peoples’ rights? - Lessons from the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil and Forest Stewardship Council

Oct 3, 2026

Governments’ insufficient regulation of natural resource use has driven the rise of “voluntary” commodity certification systems aimed at environmental and human-rights concerns, with Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) placing particular focus on indigenous peoples’ rights. The article evaluates effectiveness across standards on land and consent, indigenous participation in governance and standard-setting, member accountability, redress mechanisms, and barriers or incentives for indigenous producers to reach certified markets. Results are mixed: standards advance Free, Prior and Informed Consent, yet governance inclusion varies, remedy via grievance procedures is difficult, and market power favors large companies. National legal reforms are ultimately needed.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages17

Reading Time43 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Introduction

Global awareness and advocacy networks

Sustainable development and biodiversity frameworks

Trade agreements and the role of ITTO

Resistance from producer countries

Campaign expansion to boreal and temperate logging

149 10 Do commodity certification systems uphold indigenous peoples’ rights? Lessons from the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil and Forest Stewardship Council Marcus Colchester 10 Do commodity certification systems uphold indigenous peoples’ rights? Lessons from the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil and Forest Stewardship Council Marcus Colchester 1 Abstract: Governments’ failure to adequately regulate natural resource use to protect environmental values and human rights has led to the development of ‘voluntary’ certification systems for several commodities. Two systems that have paid most attention to indigenous peoples’ rights are the Forest Stewardship Council and the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil. This article briefly reviews the effectiveness of these two schemes to uphold indigenous peoples’ rights with respect to: the certification standards adopted, especially on land and consent; indigenous peoples’ participation in scheme governance and standard-setting; the accountability of scheme members to affected indigenous peoples; mechanisms to provide redress for violations of rights; and the barriers or incentives for indigenous producers to market certified products. Certification standards have responded to the evolution of internationally accepted rights of indigenous peoples and pioneered the adoption of Free, Prior and Informed Consent. On the ground, results are more equivocal. Schemes differ in the extent they include indigenous peoples in governance and standard-setting. FSC has a body to ensure indigenous engagement. RSPO has few indigenous members. Both have accountability procedures but their effectiveness is contested. Gaining redress through the grievance procedures has been difficult, although some cases show remedy is possible. Overall, the politics of scheme governance and economies of scale mean large companies dominate markets for certified products, despite concerted efforts to simplify procedures to certify small producers. Certification schemes seek to go beyond the law but are not above the law and have to operate within national legal frameworks that diminish indigenous rights. Consequently, they cannot fully uphold or remedy rights violations. Ultimately, national legal reforms are necessary to secure indigenous rights. Meanwhile, certification systems provide some, albeit compromised, protection of rights and scope for redress of violations. To maximise their effectiveness, they need to be more rigorous in upholding their own standards. Keywords: Certification, indigenous peoples, RSPO, FSC, land rights, consent 1 Senior Policy Advisor, Forest Peoples Programme, 1c Fosseway Business Park, Moreton-in-Marsh, GL56 9NQ, England, [marcus@forestpeoples.org](marcus@forestpeoples.org) 150 POLICY MATTERS 2016: CERTIFICATION AND BIODIVERSITY Introduction International awareness of the way State-led development causes unacceptable damage to tropical rainforests and undermines the rights of indigenous peoples grew dramatically during the 1980s (Myers 1985; Caufield 1986). Early campaigns, of what are now known as transnational advocacy networks (Keck & Sikkink 1998), included exposure of the social and environmental destruction being underwritten by international financial institutions, like the World Bank, and United Nations (UN) agencies, such as road-building in the Amazon, dams in India and transmigration in Indonesia (Rich 1985; Kalpavriksh1985; Colchester 1986). Meanwhile, global campaigns against the relentless logging of South East Asian forests by corporations, at the expense of local communities and indigenous peoples, exposed the collusion between State bureaucracies and private companies driven by the global timber trade (Hong 1986; Colchester 1989; Nectoux & Kuroda 1989; SAM 1990; Dauvergne 1997). It was the dream of conservation bodies and environmental NGOs that, just as international laws had been agreed to establish binding standards upholding huma

FAQs

Why were voluntary commodity certification systems developed in the context of indigenous rights?

Inadequate government regulation of natural resource use pushed actors toward voluntary certification systems intended to address both environmental values and human rights concerns, including indigenous peoples’ rights.

How do FSC and RSPO differ regarding indigenous participation in governance and standard-setting?

The schemes vary in how far they include indigenous peoples in governance and standard-setting: FSC has a body to ensure indigenous engagement, while RSPO has few indigenous members.

What limits the ability of certification schemes to fully uphold indigenous peoples’ rights?

Certification schemes must operate within national legal frameworks that can diminish indigenous rights, making them unable to fully uphold or remedy violations despite efforts to go beyond the law.

Oct 3, 2026

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