Tin, tantalum, tungsten, gold – for quite some time the link between these raw materials and armed conflicts has been known and become a matter of public awareness. But even though it has been proven for more than a decade that trading these resources contributes to the financing of violent actors, the industry so far has not undertaken any voluntary steps in order to deal with the problem. A new EU Regulation is meant to change this.
The US Dodd-Frank Act has been a precursor: its paragraph 1502 obliges companies to due diligence. But the act has certain weaknesses, especially its geographical limitation on the Eastern Congo and its neighbouring states. The bill for the new EU Regulation by contrast relies on voluntary self-certification.
In HSFK-Standpunkt Nr. 2/2014 "Vertane Chance. Warum die EU-Regulierung zu Konfliktrohstoffen nicht freiwillig bleiben darf", Annegret Flohr outlines the arguments brought forward by the European Commission and confronts them with the experiences from the Dodd-Frank Act. She reaches the conclusion: Wrong lessons were drawn, a reworking of the draft is urgently required, with the German Federal Government leading the way.
This HSFK-Standpunkt is available as a free PDF download (German only).