The Sustainability Learning Forum

Mercury: Time to Act

Editorial Team

This report speaks directly to governments involved in the development of the global treaty on mercury. It presents updates from the UNEP Global Mercury Assessment 2013 in short and punchy facts and figures backed by compelling graphics, that provide governments and civil society with the rationale and the imperative to act on this notorious pollutant. more[...]

The Author

Dangerous tales: Dominant narratives on the Congo and their unintended consequences

Prof Séverine Autesserre, Columbia University

Life conditions in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo have deteriorated significantly since the end of the transition to peace and democracy in late 2006. Each year, the people of the eastern provinces feel less secure than the year before. [1] There were more people internally displaced in 2010 than at the end of 2006. [2] Armed groups, including the Congolese army, relentlessly commit horrific violations of human rights. The Congo has dropped twenty places (from 167 to 187) in the Index of Human Development, officially becoming the least developed country on earth.[3] Overall, current conditions for the populations of the eastern Congo remain among the worst in Africa. more[...]

The Author

The Trouble with the Congo

The Trouble with the Congo suggests a new explanation for international peacebuilding failures in civil wars. Drawing from more than 330 interviews and a year and a half of field research, it develops a case study of the international intervention during the Democratic Republic of the Congo's unsuccessful transition from war to peace and democracy (2003–2006). Grassroots rivalries over land, resources, and political power motivated widespread violence. However, a dominant peacebuilding culture shaped the intervention strategy in a way that precluded action on local conflicts, ultimately dooming the international efforts to end the deadliest conflict since World War II. Most international actors interpreted continued fighting as the consequence of national and regional tensions alone. UN staff and diplomats viewed intervention at the macro levels as their only legitimate responsibility. The dominant culture constructed local peacebuilding as such an unimportant, unfamiliar, and unmanageable task that neither shocking events nor resistance from select individuals could convince international actors to reevaluate their understanding of violence and intervention. more[...]

The Author

Conflict Minerals

Resource conflict is one of several destabilizing phenomena commonly cited as defining many of the extractive economies of the global south. Our Tutorial discusses all aspects of the issue with a special focus on US laws, SEC and Dodd-Frank Act regulations. more[...]

The Author

Dodd–Frank Section 1502 and the SEC’s final rule

Ernst & Young

In recent years, there has been an increasing international focus on conflict minerals emanating from mining operations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and adjoining countries. Armed groups engaged in mining operations in this region are believed to subject workers and indigenous people to serious human rights abuses and are using proceeds from the sale of conflict minerals to finance regional conflicts. more[...] login_required

The Author

Conflict minerals: What you need to know about the new disclosure and reporting requirements and how Ernst & Young can help

Ernst & Young

This Studie discusses Section 1502 of the Dodd–Frank Act requiring disclosures about "conflict minerals" emanating from select countries. Section 1502 of the Dodd–Frank Act is intended to make transparent the financial interests that support armed groups in the DRC area. By requiring companies using conflict minerals in their products to disclose the source of such minerals, the law is aimed at dissuading companies from continuing to engage in trade that supports regional conflicts. more[...] login_required

The Author

Conflict minerals: What you need to know about the new disclosure and reporting requirements and how Ernst & Young can help

Ernst & Young

This Studie discusses Section 1502 of the Dodd–Frank Act requiring disclosures about "conflict minerals" emanating from select countries. Section 1502 of the Dodd–Frank Act is intended to make transparent the financial interests that support armed groups in the DRC area. By requiring companies using conflict minerals in their products to disclose the source of such minerals, the law is aimed at dissuading companies from continuing to engage in trade that supports regional conflicts. more[...] login_required

The Author

Flammable Societies. Studies on the Socio-economics of Oil and Gas

Dr John-Andrew McNeish, CMI
Owen Logan, University of Aberdeen

The impact of the oil and gas industry – paradoxically seen both as a blessing and a curse on socio-economic development – is a question at the heart of the comparative studies in this volume stretching from Northern Europe to the Caucasus, the Gulf of Guinea to Latin America. more[...]

The Author

Rethinking Resource Conflict

Dr John-Andrew McNeish, CMI

Resource conflict is one of several destabilizing phenomena commonly cited as defining many of the extractive economies of the global south. In the post-Cold War in which stability has become a key concern of international governance and investment it has also been an issue that has encouraged a proliferation of scholarly and policy interest. In these studies and policy discussions a large number of terms are now in use in an attempt to account for the complicated state of affairs faced by resource-rich countries in the global south: intractable conflicts, new wars, resource wars, complex political emergencies, conflict trap, resource securitization, petro-violence, blood diamonds. more[...]

The Author

Taking Conflict Out of Consumer Gadgets: Company Rankings on Conflict Minerals 2012

Sasha Lezhnev, Enough Project

Leading electronics companies are making progress in eliminating conflict minerals from their supply chains, but still cannot label their products as being conflict free. Since Enough’s last corporate rankings report on conflict minerals in December 2010, a majority of leading consumer electronics companies have moved ahead in addressing conflict minerals in their supply chains—spurred by the conflict minerals provision in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and growing consumer activism, particularly on college campuses. Most firms have improved their scores from the 2010 rankings, but some laggards still remain. more[...] login_required

The Author

Taking Conflict Out of Consumer Gadgets - Company Rankings on Conflict Minerals 2012

Enough Project

Leading electronics companies are making progress in eliminating conflict minerals from their supply chains, but still cannot label their products as being conflict free. Since Enough’s last corporate rankings report on conflict Minerals in December 2010, a majority of leading consumer electronics companies have moved ahead in addressing conflict minerals in their supply chains—spurred by the conflict minerals provision in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and growing consumer activism, particularly on college Campuses. Most firms have improved their scores from the 2010 rankings, but some laggards still remain. more[...] login_required

The Author

Conflict Minerals and SEC Disclosure Regulation

Prof. Celia Taylor, University of Denver Sturm College of Law

Mention the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (“Dodd-Frank” or the “Act”),[1] and most people think of legislation aimed at “fundamental reform of the financial system”[2] focused on regulation of Wall Street practices and complex financial products. But tucked within the voluminous text of the Act (which consists of 2,300 pages and stipulates the passage of 387 rules by 20 different agencies[3]) is a provision having nothing to do with these issues or anything remotely related to them. Instead the “conflict minerals” provision of the Act requires companies that are subject to the reporting requirement of the federal securities laws to disclose whether they manufacture products using so-called “conflict minerals” sourced from the Democratic Republic of Congo (“DRC”) or contiguous countries.[4] more[...]

The Author

Blood on your mobile phone? Capturing the gains for artisanal miners, poor workers and women

Dr. Dev Nathan, Institute for Human Development

Capturing the Gains research into the global production of mobile phones traces the connections between armed factions, poverty and violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and mobile phone users worldwide. The critical link is coltan, or columbite tantalite. It is the raw material for tantalum, an essential mineral in the manufacture of mobile phones, computers and other electronic equipment. more[...] login_required

The Author

Gold is now the Most Lucrative Conflict Mineral from Eastern Congo

Enough Project

Gold smuggled from eastern Congo’s war zone is now the most lucrative conflict mineral and is ending up at jewelry stores and banks, according to a new investigative report by the Enough Project. The study found that following a 65 percent drop in profits from the conflict minerals tin, tungsten, and tantalum, armed groups have increasingly turned to smuggling the fourth conflict mineral, gold, to generate income that finances mass atrocities in eastern Congo. The armed groups use poorly paid miners, who work in dangerous conditions, including thousands of children as young as eight years old. The study maps out how conflict gold makes its way from eastern Congo to consumers worldwide who purchase it in the form of wedding rings and watches, and investment banks that buy gold bars. more[...] login_required

The Author

Global Witness condemns API lawsuit to strike down Dodd-Frank oil, gas and mining transparency provision

Global Witness is outraged by a lawsuit filed by the American Petroleum Institute (API), the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and others to gut Section 1504, an important anti-corruption provision of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. (1) By seeking to nullify this provision, API, whose members include BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil and Shell, and other industry groups are demonstrating that they have something to hide. Any claims by API that they support transparency efforts are preposterous when they are not only trying to weaken the rules but to strike Section 1504 in its entirety. more[...] login_required

The Author

Advanced Search