The Conflict Minerals Agenda: Looking For Peace in the Wrong Place

Abstract

To be fair to some of the main advocacy organisations behind the campaign to ‘clean up’ the eastern DRC’s minerals – such as Global Witness and the Enough Project – they do not (when you take the time to read their publications) claim that this will be a panacea for the conflict. However, they do – by prioritising the subject above all others – promote it as the most pressing and urgent conflict-related issue requiring attention in the eastern DRC today. And many governments have responded to their clarion call for action, with the US and Canada passing conflict mineral legislation specifically on the eastern Congo and the European Union set to follow suit in 2014.