The Current Disconnect Between Global Finance Regulations and Local Conflict: How Your Computer Parts May Fund Human Rights Violations in the Democratic Republic of Congo

As of February 7, 2025, armed conflict in Africa’s Great Lakes Region is intensifying, with the M23 rebel group, allegedly backed by Rwanda, invading the Democratic Republic of Congo (“DRC”) and committing egregious human rights violations such as mass rape and killings.[1] Rwanda justifies its actions in the region by citing security threats from groups associated with the 1994 Rwandan Genocide that fled to the DRC.[2] Despite Rwanda’s role as a Western ally, the country faces international criticism for perpetuating regional instability to control the DRC’s mines.[3] In mineral-rich areas with armed conflict, certain minerals are highly profitable and can also help fund violence and human rights abuses.[4] Reforming U.S. conflict minerals regulations could be crucial in addressing the ongoing conflict in the DRC.

As outlined in the U.S. Dodd-Frank Act, the Organization for Economic Corporation and Development (“OECD”) framework and China’s guidance, companies should exercise “due diligence” and “reasonable care” to ensure their supply chains do not fund armed conflict.[5] The supply chain spans multiple countries, often starting in the DRC with mineral extraction.[6] Then, minerals are imported into other countries for refining, manufacturing, and assembly into everyday products like computers.[7] At each stage, bad actors can profit illegally by operating without proper licenses and fueling violence and human rights abuses, while trapping local mining communities in poverty.[8]

Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Act requires U.S. publicly traded companies to trace “conflict” minerals (aka 3TG minerals: tin, tungsten, tantalum, and gold) to determine if they “directly or indirectly finance or benefit armed groups” in the DRC or its neighboring countries.[9] If a company manufactures products with these minerals or contracts to do so, it must determine if the minerals are “necessary to the functionality or production of a product.”[10] If so, the company must conduct a “good faith, reasonable country of origin inquiry” to determine if they are from the DRC or a bordering country.[11] If they know (or have a reason to know) that they are from the DRC, they must conduct “due diligence” to confirm.[12] Companies must also file a disclosure statement with the SEC describing their process and results, regardless of whether they know their source or not.[13] Products confirmed to be free of conflict minerals can be labeled “DRC Conflict Free,” while those unable to determine whether they benefit armed groups can use the “DRC Conflict Undeterminable” label.[14] This process follows the OECD’s five-step due diligence framework, though adherence is not required.[15]

The EU’s Conflict Minerals Regulation broadly focuses on 3TG minerals sourced from any conflict zone or an area with weak governance, unlike Dodd-Frank, which focuses only on the DRC and neighboring countries.[16] The EU regulation applies to all EU-based importers, while Dodd-Frank only affects publicly traded companies.[17] Additionally, the EU requires adherence to the OECD framework, offering more precise guidelines for supply chain management for “upstream” and “downstream” companies, while Dodd-Frank focuses primarily on reporting what companies can find out.[18]

A year after Dodd-Frank’s enactment, most U.S. companies met minimum requirements, only conducting due diligence with direct suppliers and often failing to trace further down the supply chain.[19] Many SEC reports lacked detail, and 41% of companies had no policy to identify specific supply chain risks.[20] By 2024, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (“GAO”) found that violence in the DRC increased after Dodd-Frank, especially around gold mining sites.[21] In addition, since given the option, many companies defaulted to the “DRC Conflict Undeterminable” label.[22] Some companies even withdrew from the region entirely and sourced elsewhere, displacing local miners and worsening violence and poverty.[23] While Dodd-Frank raised awareness of supply chain issues, the Act’s narrow focus and lack of penalties failed to improve conditions, pushing local miners into criminal activity that the Act sought to prevent due to increased unemployment.[24]

Since U.S. companies face no penalties for false or reckless reporting and are not required to implement risk systems, the regulation lacks enforcement mechanisms and fails to drive meaningful change in the region.[25] The U.S. should consider imposing harsher penalties and liability on companies that file incomplete, false, or misleading reports.[26] For example, the DRC recently sued Apple subsidiaries for using conflict minerals.[27] Apple only audited its direct suppliers, neglecting earlier stages of production like mining.[28] This case is one of the first to hold end-user companies accountable for earlier stages in the mineral supply chain.[29] Another improvement would require U.S. companies to follow OECD guidance, including implementing a “grievance mechanism” to allow whistleblowers and affected individuals to raise their concerns with a company’s supply chain.[30] By requiring companies to implement systems and expanding the scope of the law to all conflict areas like the EU’s regulation, more active changes would result rather than giving companies a gold star for doing nothing. 

Despite the EU’s calls for peace, its actions contradicted its rhetoric when it signed a minerals deal with Rwanda a year ago, motivated by competition with China for mineral access.[31] Since most mines are in the DRC, Rwanda’s current involvement in acquiring minerals and profiting from illegal trade is concerning.[32] Implementing an international standardized accountability system, with all mineral-competing nations onboard, that requires company adherence to the OECD framework could likely help curb the illegal mineral trade in Africa’s Great Lakes Region and hopefully bring more peace to the region.

Cate Benitez is a staff member of Fordham International Law Journal Volume XLVIII. 

[1] Ruth Maclean, Rwanda, the West’s ‘Donor Darling,’ Seizes an Opportunity in Congo, N.Y. Times (Jan. 28, 2025), https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/28/world/africa/rwanda-congo-goma-conflict.html.

[2] Fall of DRC’s Goma: Urgent Action Needed to Avert a Regional War, Int’l Crisis Gr. (Jan. 28, 2025), https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/great-lakes/democratic-republic-congo/fall-drcs-goma-urgent-action-needed-avert-regional-war. 

[3] Id. 

[4] Conflict Minerals Regulation: The Regulation Explained (EC), Regulation (EU) 2017/821, 2007 O.J. (C 158), https://policy.trade.ec.europa.eu/development-and-sustainability/conflict-minerals-regulation/regulation-explained_en#main-content.

[5] US Conflict Minerals Law, Glob.Witness (Nov. 15, 2017), https://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/conflict-minerals/dodd-frank-act-section-1502/.

[6] Id.

[7] Id.

[8] Id.

[9] H.R. 4173, 111th Cong. § 1502 (2010).

[10] Id.

[11] Id.

[12] Id.

[13] Id.

[14] Conflict Minerals Disclosure, SEC (last reviewed Nov. 13, 2012), https://www.sec.gov/resources-small-businesses/small-business-compliance-guides/conflict-minerals-disclosure. 

[15] OECD Annex II Risks, Responsible Mins. Initiative,

https://www.responsiblemineralsinitiative.org/minerals-due-diligence/issues/oecd-annex-ii-risks/.

[16] European Commission, supra note 4.

[17] Id.

[18] Id.

[19] United States of America: Digging for Transparency: How U.S. Companies Are Only Scratching the Surface of Conflict Minerals Reporting, Amnesty Int’l (Apr. 22, 2015), https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/amr51/1499/2015/en/.

[20] Id. 

[21] U.S. Gov’t Accountability Off., GAO-25-107018, Conflict Minerals: Peace and Security in Democratic Republic of the Congo Have Not Improved with SEC Disclosure Rule (2024). 

[22] Id. 

[23] Nik Stoop, Marijke Verpoorten, & Peter van der Windt, More Legislation, More Violence? The Impact of Dodd-Frank in the DRC, Nat’l Library of Med. (Aug. 9, 2013), https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6084930/.  

[24] Id.; Jeffrey R. Bloem, Good Intentions Gone Bad? The Dodd-Frank Act and Conflict in Africa’s Great Lakes Region, 71 Econ. Dev. & Cultur. Change 621 (2023), available at https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/715618.

[25] Stoop, supra note 23.

[26] Amnesty International, supra note 19. 

[27] Sonia Rolley, Congo files criminal complaints against Apple in Europe over conflict minerals, Reuters (Dec. 17, 2024), https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/society-equity/congo-files-criminal-complaints-against-apple-europe-over-conflict-minerals-2024-12-17/. 

[28] Id.

[29] See Id.

[30] Amnesty International, supra note 19, at 30. 

[31] Antonia Zimmerman, ‘Blood Minerals’: EU Accused of Fueling Conflict with Rwanda Deal, Politico (July 25, 2024), https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-rwanda-minerals-agreement-coltan-ore-mining-conflict-smuggling-rubaya-democratic-republic-of-the-congo-paul-kagame/; Dr. Denis Mukwege, Statement of Dr. Denis Mukwege on the recent EU-Rwanda Agreement on Conflict Minerals, Panzi (Feb. 21, 2024), https://panzifoundation.org/dr-mukwege-eu-rwanda-agreement/. 

[32] Zimmerman, supra note 31. 

This is a student blog post and in no way represents the views of the Fordham International Law Journal.