Applying and assessing free market environmentalism to the Democratic Republic of Congo’s coltan resources: Challenges and possibilities

Abstract

Coltan is the commonly used term for tantalum, a metal used in electronics, when sourced from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). This article considers that a “resource curse,” where a resource-rich country paradoxically experiences low social and economic development, is occurring in the DRC with respect to this mineral. The school of economic thought known as free market environmentalism broadly prescribes free markets, individual property rights, and common-law liability as the incentives to reduce environmental problems. While it is a less-common and sometimes controversial perspective on solving environmental problems, an analysis of a free market environmentalist perspective of coltan mining in the DRC provides alternative perspectives on solving a “resource curse,” such as effective property rights as put forward by Moriss (2009). Considering the practicality of implementing free market environmentalist principles in a war-torn country with weak governance, this article theorizes that the Congolese government could respond to the recent Congo Conflict Minerals Act within the American Dodd-Frank Act (2010) by implementing licenses to mine coltan resources that closely resemble private property rights, drawing on Pearse (1988), in areas of the DRC less affected by conflict.
 
 Keywords: Democratic Republic of Congo; coltan; tantalum; mining; free market environmentalism; property rights (privatization of)