Abstract
Competition over environmental and natural resources characteristically lies at the heart of armed conflicts in Africa. It is also common knowledge that some companies dealing in products such as laptops, smart phones, and jewellery import minerals from conflict-affected areas, thereby indirectly fuelling conflicts in these areas or undermining human rights. For a continent endowed with natural resources including minerals, Africa has suffered the brunt of this predicament. This state of affairs has lent impetus to the adoption of several regulations geared towards curbing irresponsible business practices by companies relying on such minerals, the goal being, amongst others, to guarantee the protection of human rights. In May 2017, the European Union adopted regulations intended to stop the importation of conflict minerals in Europe, debatably making giant strides in the direction of the protection of human rights. These regulations are to come into force in 2021. However, can these regulations advance the much-desired goal of the protection of human rights in Africa on issues pertaining to conflict minerals? By analyzing the 2017 EU regulations in light of previous regulations of a similar nature, the paper concludes that the said regulations constitute a weak normative framework and could in fact have unintended consequences on the fundamental rights of civilians in natural resource-rich conflict areas of Africa.
Highlights
Introduction published maps and institutional affilThe abundance of natural resources across African countries is indisputable
Can these regulations advance the much-desired goal of the protection of human rights in Africa on issues pertaining to conflict minerals? By analyzing the 2017 EU regulations in light of previous regulations of a similar nature, the paper concludes that the said regulations constitute a weak normative framework and could have unintended consequences on the fundamental rights of civilians in natural resource-rich conflict areas of Africa
The section discusses the EU regulations, clearly demonstrating the limitations of these regulations in addressing the ills of conflict minerals. It concludes that though they constitute a step in the right direction, at least according to some commentators, they establish a weak framework for the protection of human and environmental rights in the conflict-affected areas of Africa
Summary
Rebel groups across the African continent are known to be using the proceeds from trading in these minerals to fund armed conflicts and undermine legitimate governments in the major trouble areas such as the DR Congo, Angola, and Sierra Leone This reality illustrates what has been termed as the ‘resource curse’, a situation where a poor country’s natural resource abundance leads to problems such as poor governance, corruption, and nepotism. The discussions above are significant in combating the international sale and trading in conflict minerals as a study on mining sites in the eastern DR Congo showed that gold is the leading conflict mineral from the region’
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