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Date: April 29, 2024 Mon
Time: 8:15 pm
Time: 8:15 pm
Results for conflict minerals (africa)
3 results foundAuthor: Cook, Nicolas Title: Conflict Minerals in Central Africa: U.S. and International Responses Summary: “Conflict minerals” are ores that, when sold or traded, have played key roles in helping to fuel conflict and extensive human rights abuses, since the late 1990s, in far eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The main conflict minerals are the so-called the “3TGs”: ores of tantalum and niobium, tin, tungsten, and gold, and their derivatives. Diverse international efforts to break the link between mineral commerce and conflict in central Africa have been proposed or are under way. Key initiatives include government and industry-led mineral tracking and certification schemes. These are designed to monitor trade in minerals to keep armed groups from financially benefitting from this commerce, in compliance with firm-level and/or industry due diligence policies that prohibit transactions with armed groups. Congress has long been concerned about conflicts and human rights abuses in the DRC. Hearings during successive congresses have focused on ways to help end or mitigate their effects, and multiple resolutions and bills seeking the same goals have been introduced. Several have become law. The most extensive U.S. law aimed at halting the trade in conflict minerals, specifically the 3TGs, is Section 1502 of Title XV of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (P.L. 111-203). Among other ends, Section 1502 requires the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to issue rules mandating that SEC-regulated businesses that use conflict minerals in their products: • report if they obtained their mineral supplies from the DRC or nearby countries; • be permitted to label as “DRC conflict free” products that they can credibly demonstrate do not incorporate minerals sourced in a manner that directly or indirectly finances or benefits armed groups in DRC or adjoining countries; • publicly report to the SEC on those of their products which do incorporate minerals that are not “DRC conflict free”—and which may not be labeled as such—and on diligence measures used to obtain these minerals. Section 1502 raises complex rule design, compliance, cost estimate, and implementation questions, and Section 1502 advocates and critics—many politically influential—have been urging the SEC issue rules favorable to their respective views and interests. The complexity of the matters at issue and diversity of interests affected have prompted the SEC to repeatedly delay issuance of a final rule, although it is expected to act on the matter in mid-August 2012. Key rulemaking issues under debate include: • timing and a possible phase-in of rule implementation; and • what due diligence standards are to be used. There is widespread support for use of due diligence guidelines developed by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in eventual Section 1502 rules, both to ensure complementarity between U.S. and international conflict mineral trade abatement efforts, most of which employ the OECD guidelines, and to enable these schemes to mature. The State Department has provided to Congress a strategy aimed at breaking the link between mineral trade and conflict and, together with the U.S. Agency for International Development, is implementing programs in central Africa to support tracking and certification schemes; local small-scale mining communities; anti-mining labor abuse efforts; and related ends. Details: Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2012. 38p. Source: Internet Resource: CRS Report R42618: Accessed August 7, 2012 at: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R42618.pdf Year: 2012 Country: Africa URL: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R42618.pdf Shelf Number: 125897 Keywords: Conflict Minerals (Africa)Forced LaborHuman Rights AbusesNatural ResourcesViolence |
Author: Arimatsu, Louise Title: Conflict Minerals: The Search for a Normative Framework Summary: The belief that the armed conflicts in the mineral-rich eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo have been perpetuated by the income from the illicit trade in these minerals has brought together a broad coalition of interests linked by a common objective: to regulate ‘conflict minerals’. This has generated a wave of initiatives, strategies and regulations involving the trade in minerals; many of these seek to prevent armed conflict while others are aimed more broadly at contributing to the maintenance of peace and security through greater transparency and good governance measures. These ambitious programmes of action, whether at international, regional or domestic levels, have raised difficult questions including how to distinguish between legal and illegal trade within an unregulated economy compounded by the existence of armed conflict. A fully regulated mining sector has the potential to offer huge rewards for local communities and the state, but whether the regulation of conflict minerals can achieve its avowed aim as a conflict-prevention strategy remains to be seen. There is an overriding need for governments to ensure that any measures adopted, whether legally binding or not, take into account any potential unintended consequences that are likely to have an adverse impact on the very communities that the measures are intended to protect. Details: London: Chatham House, 2012. 38p. Source: Internet Resource: International Law Programme Paper IL PP 2012/01: Accessed September 25, 2012 at: http://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/public/Research/International%20Law/0912pparimatsu_mistry.pdf Year: 2012 Country: Africa URL: http://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/public/Research/International%20Law/0912pparimatsu_mistry.pdf Shelf Number: 126450 Keywords: Conflict Minerals (Africa)Illegal TradeMineralsNatural Resources |
Author: Atta-Asamoah, Andrews Title: Addressing the 'Conflict Minerals' Crisis in the Great Lakes Region Summary: The year 2011 heralded the convergence of various initiatives seeking to curtail the financing of conflict in the Great Lakes region through the illegal exploitation of minerals. The combined effect of seeking to comply with the various processes has had significant implications at the national, regional and international levels by altering the dynamics of mineral exploitation in the region in both positive and negative ways. The positive impact has been in the area of the immense contribution of the initiatives to increased awareness of the role of illegally exploited minerals in financing conflict in the region and the need for various stakeholders to exercise responsibility in the sourcing and trading of minerals so as not to inadvertently fuel insecurity. On the flip side, however, this increased awareness has led to the labelling of minerals from the region, particularly gold, tin, tantalum and tungsten, as potential conflict minerals. While this has been important in boosting efforts at minimising conflict financing through the exploitation of minerals, the ‘conflict mineral’ label associated with the region has led to interrupted demand for minerals from the Great Lakes, the closure of some businesses dealing with the purchase and export of minerals, the loss of employment and a reduction in income within the local economy, and ultimately threatens to negatively reinforce the crisis created by the various conflicts in the region if nothing is done to stem the trend of unintended consequences. Against this background, this policy brief aims at providing a framework for responding to the unintended consequences of existing initiatives in the Great Lakes region. It details the areas of immediate impact of these initiatives, their overall impact on the trends of insecurity in the region and ways of addressing the issues in the short to medium term. Details: Pretoria: Institute for Security Studies, 2012. 4p. Source: ISS Policy Brief No. 35: Internet Resource: Accessed October 1, 2012 at http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/ISS_AddressingtheConflictMineralsCrisisintheGreatLakesRegion.pdf Year: 2012 Country: Africa URL: http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/ISS_AddressingtheConflictMineralsCrisisintheGreatLakesRegion.pdf Shelf Number: 126542 Keywords: Conflict Minerals (Africa)Illegal TradeMineralsNatural Resources |