The European Union and natural resources that fund armed conflicts: Explaining the EU’s policy choice for supply chain due-diligence requirements
| Author | Martijn C Vlaskamp |
| DOI | 10.1177/0010836718808314 |
| Published date | 01 September 2019 |
| Date | 01 September 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0010836718808314
Cooperation and Conflict
2019, Vol. 54(3) 407 –425
© The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/0010836718808314
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The European Union and
natural resources that fund
armed conflicts: Explaining
the EU’s policy choice for
supply chain due-diligence
requirements
Martijn C Vlaskamp
Abstract
Natural resources can be an important source of funding for warring parties in armed conflicts.
Curbing the trade in these so-called conflict resources is, therefore, part of the European
Union’s conflict management policies. The article explores the EU’s policies in this field and asks,
specifically, why the EU is using supply chain due-diligence measures to achieve this goal. The
author argues that they are the response to enforcement problems of most existing multilateral
and unilateral sanction regimes because of state weakness in the targeted regions. This approach
results from a broader idea from the EU that transparency can improve resource governance
and, therefore, safeguard both its political and economic interests in conflict zones, such as the
eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. However, when the issue becomes specific—as in
the EU Conflict Minerals Regulation—translating this idea into concrete policies becomes more
contentious as the EU institutions set different priorities for the final policy design.
Keywords
Armed conflicts, conflict resources, European Union, natural resources, supply chain due
diligence, transparency
Introduction
On 3 April 2017, the Council of the European Union adopted the “Conflict Minerals
Regulation.” Almost seven years after the European Parliament had first called for a
legislative initiative to deal with this issue, the EU member states agreed on supply chain
Corresponding author:
Martijn C Vlaskamp, Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals (IBEI), Campus de la Ciutadella (UPF),
Ramon Trias Fargas 25-27, 08005 Barcelona, Spain.
Email: mvlaskamp@ibei.org
808314CAC0010.1177/0010836718808314Cooperation and ConflictVlaskamp
research-article2018
Article
408 Cooperation and Conflict 54(3)
due-diligence requirements for tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold (3TG) importers. The
declared aim of the regulation is to prevent the financing of armed groups and security
forces in resource-rich areas through the illegal trade of natural resources. While the
Conflict Minerals Regulation is not limited in geographical scope, it was primarily moti-
vated by the situation in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where
army and rebel groups fund themselves, at least partially, with minerals. By adopting this
regulation, the EU hoped to “provide transparency and certainty as regards the supply
practices of [European] Union importers, and of smelters and refiners sourcing from
conflict-affected and high-risk areas” (Council of the EU, 2017b: 18).
Until this regulation, the EU’s predominant approach to this issue had been to include
specific commodities, extractive companies, or resource-related activities on its sanc-
tions lists. Most of these measures are implementations of decisions in the United Nations
Security Council (UNSC) or the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) for
rough diamonds. The Conflict Minerals Regulation is the first EU policy exclusively
dedicated to so-called conflict resources, which will be understood in this article as
…natural resources whose systematic exploitation and trade in a context of conflict contribute
to, benefit from, or result in the commission of serious violations of human rights, violations of
international humanitarian law, or violations amounting to crimes under international law
(Global Witness, 2006: 10).1
This article aims to explain why the EU has chosen supply chain due-diligence
requirements as a tool to curtail trade in conflict resources. To borrow the Conflict
Minerals Regulation’s definition, supply chain due-diligence can be understood as the
obligations of importers of selected natural resources
…in relation to their management systems, risk management, independent third-party audits
and disclosure of information with a view to identifying and addressing actual and potential
risks linked to conflict-affected and high-risk areas to prevent or mitigate adverse impacts
associated with their sourcing activities (Council of the EU, 2017b: 20).
By answering this question, the article will be one of the first studies of the EU’s policies
concerning conflict resources while contributing to the literature that discusses EU
restrictive measures (Giumelli, 2011; Portela, 2005, 2011). The empirical part of this
article is based on a review of primary and secondary literature, participation in practi-
tioners’ meetings, and 25 semi-structured interviews with EU and national officials,
industry spokespersons, and advocacy non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
This article is structured as follows. In the next section, I will describe previous EU
policies on conflict resources. After that, I will present a brief analytical framework to
look at EU external policy choices. Using this framework, I will then discuss the EU’s
interests concerning the issue of conflict resources. Next, I will describe the ideational
underpinnings that have brought EU policymakers to the idea that supply chain due-dil-
igence requirements are an effective tool to safeguard these interests. I will then discuss
the policymaking process of the EU Conflict Minerals Regulation to illustrate how the
different institutions came to the final policy output. In the final section, I will summa-
rize the findings.
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