Coltan from central africa....

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Resources Policy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/resourpol

Coltan from Central Africa, international trade and implications for any certification
Raimund Bleischwitz a,n,1, Monika Dittrich b,2, Chiara Pierdicca c,3
a

Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy, D¨ppersberg 19,42103 Wuppertal, Germany o Burgstrasse 24, 69121 Heidelberg, Germany c College of Europe, European Economic Studies Department, Dijver 11, BE-8000 Brugge, Belgium
b

a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history: Received 7 July 2011 Received in revised form 21 December 2011 Accepted 21 December 2011 JEL classification: F14 K42 N50 O19 Q33 Keywords: Coltan Certification Central Africa Raw materialsconflict International trade

abstract
The exploitation of coltan in Central Africa can be considered a case of conflict minerals due to its nature. Many international organizations and bodies, national governments and private sector organizations seek to address this conflict, in particular via transparency, certification and accountability along the material supply chain. This paper analyses theinternational trade dimension of coltan and gives evidence on the dimension of illicit trade of coltan. The authors start from the hypothesis that illicit trade of coltan sooner or later will enter the market and will be reflected in the statistics. The paper is structured in the following manner: first, a short section gives a profile of coltan production and markets; second, an overview of the miningsituation in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and related actors. The third section addresses mechanisms, actors and measurement issues involved in the international trade of coltan. The final part draws lessons for certification and conflict analysis and offers some guidance for future research. The paper identifies two main possible gateways to trace illegal trade in coltan: the neighboringcountries, especially Rwanda, and the importing countries for downstream production, in particular China. Our estimation is that the value of such illicit trade comes close to $27 million annually (2009), roughly one-fifth of the world market volume for tantalum production. With regard to any certification the paper concludes that this will become challenging for business and policy: (a) Central Africacurrently is the largest supplier of coltan on the world market, many actors profit from the current situation and possess abilities to hide responsibility; (b) China will need to accept more responsibility, a first step would be the acceptance of the OECD guidelines on due diligence; (c) better regional governance in Central Africa comprises of resource taxation, a resource fund and fiscalcoordination. An international task force may provide more robust data, however more research will also be needed. & 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Introduction Coltan mining in Central Africa and especially in the Eastern Kivu region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has often been viewed as a case for a conflict over the control of raw materials in a fragile state.4 Although the DRCseems to advance

Corresponding author. Tel.: þ49 202 2492 256; fax: þ49 202 2492 108. E-mail addresses: raimund.bleischwitz@wupperinst.org (R. Bleischwitz), monika.dittrich@gmx.net (M. Dittrich), chiara.pierdicca@coleurope.eu (C. Pierdicca). 1 Transatlantic Academy Fellow, Washington D.C. 2 Tel: þ49 162 932 99 19. 3 Tel.: þ32 50 47 72 24. 4 According to the World Bank, fragile states arelow-income countries scoring 3.2 and below on the Country Policy and Institutional Assessment (CPIA). The term is used for countries with weak institutional capacity, poor governance, and political instability (World Bank, 2009). One also finds the term ‘failing states’ in the literature; however, this indicates a trend towards failing and given some progress in the DRC lately we prefer the term fragile...