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rights abuses and the cobalt supply chain","human-rights-abuses-and-the-cobalt-supply-chain","article/human-rights-abuses-and-the-cobalt-supply-chain",{"_uid":557,"date":558,"tags":559,"editor":560,"content":570,"excerpt":742,"featured":50,"reporter":743,"_editable":747,"component":748,"seo_title":553,"categories":749,"visibility":758,"author_company":49,"featured_image":759,"seo_description":742,"author_full_name":49,"author_job_title":49,"formattedDate":764,"formattedArticleDate":765},"f1ae8110-d4e7-47ab-92cb-645290424fde","2016-07-21 00:00",[],[561],{"slug":562,"name":563,"content":564},"didi-bostock","Didi Bostock",{"job_title":565,"image":566,"bio":568,"linkedin":569},"Editor - Energy Transition & Economics",{"filename":567},"https://a.storyblok.com/f/287943243085208/512x512/2c5ca5c1a3/didi-bostock.jpeg","Didi is the Energy Transition & Economics Editor at Benchmark, covering a broad range of markets across the energy transition. His remit spans from downstream sectors such as BESS and EVs, through to midstream such as new technologies and battery production, to upstream critical minerals mining. He also leads on financial analysis across these supply chains, alongside in-depth policy analysis.\n","https://www.linkedin.com/in/didi-bostock-656342198/",{"type":571,"content":572},"doc",[573,580,585,590,595,598,603,608,613,618,623,628,631,636,641,646,651,656,661,664,669,674,679,684,689,694,699,704,709,714,719,724,727,732,737],{"type":574,"attrs":575,"content":576},"paragraph",{"textAlign":49},[577],{"text":578,"type":579}," In January 2016, Amnesty International released a report on artisanal cobalt mining and alleged human rights abuses in the DRC. Here, Mark Dummett, co-author of ‘This is what we die for’, explains the findings of the report, the subsequent global reaction and outlines the changes needed in corporate due diligence to prevent such abuses from continuing","text",{"type":574,"attrs":581,"content":582},{"textAlign":49},[583],{"text":584,"type":579},"Cobalt might end up in high-tech products, such as smartphones and electric vehicles, but much of it is mined using basic tools that have not changed in centuries.",{"type":574,"attrs":586,"content":587},{"textAlign":49},[588],{"text":589,"type":579},"In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), tens of thousands of miners use nothing more sophisticated than mallets and long metal spikes to chisel out the ore.",{"type":574,"attrs":591,"content":592},{"textAlign":49},[593],{"text":594,"type":579},"They work in tunnels deep underground that they have dug by hand, which are prone to collapse. The valuable mineral is also mined by children as young as seven. They scavenge in the discarded by-products of industrial mines, washing and sorting the ore before it is sold.",{"type":574,"attrs":596,"content":597},{"textAlign":49},[],{"type":574,"attrs":599,"content":600},{"textAlign":49},[601],{"text":602,"type":579},"The DRC is the source of more than half of the world’s cobalt, and the government there estimates that some 20 per cent is mined by hand. Industry analysts suggest the real figure might be even higher, with thousands of artisanal miners digging for cobalt in new areas in 2015.",{"type":574,"attrs":604,"content":605},{"textAlign":49},[606],{"text":607,"type":579},"Most artisanal miners do not even have the most basic safety equipment, such as boots or helmets. Chronic exposure to dust containing cobalt can result in the potentially fatal “hard metal lung disease”, but artisanal miners have nothing to protect them.",{"type":574,"attrs":609,"content":610},{"textAlign":49},[611],{"text":612,"type":579},"Miners told us that hand-dug mines can extend for fifty metres underground, often without any support to hold them up, and are poorly ventilated. There is no official data available on the number of fatalities that occur, but miners said accidents are common, as unsupported tunnels collapse frequently. Between September 2014 and December 2015 alone, the DRC’s UN-run radio station, Radio Okapi, carried reports of fatal accidents involving more than 80 artisanal miners in the province then known as Katanga (last summer Katanga was divided into three). However, the true figure is likely to be far higher as many accidents go unrecorded and bodies are left buried underground.",{"type":574,"attrs":614,"content":615},{"textAlign":49},[616],{"text":617,"type":579},"It is DRC government policy to support the formalisation of artisanal mining and it has created authorized zones where mining activities can be regulated and made safer.",{"type":574,"attrs":619,"content":620},{"textAlign":49},[621],{"text":622,"type":579},"But the reality is that this policy has not been well implemented: there are very few authorized zones and most artisanal mining continues to take place in unofficial and unregulated areas. The government agencies charged with regulating artisanal mining and inspecting work sites for child labour are woefully understaffed and lack the capacity to perform their tasks. Artisanal miners complain that the government officials who are meant to help them are more likely to demand illegal payments from them.",{"type":574,"attrs":624,"content":625},{"textAlign":49},[626],{"text":627,"type":579},"Last year, a team of researchers from Amnesty International and Afrewatch, a Congolese human rights organisation, travelled to southern DRC to investigate the plight of the men, women and children working in artisanal cobalt mines. As well as documenting the dangerous and abusive conditions in the mines, we also traced the routes along which the mineral is then traded internationally.",{"type":574,"attrs":629,"content":630},{"textAlign":49},[],{"type":574,"attrs":632,"content":633},{"textAlign":49},[634],{"text":635,"type":579},"Researchers followed vehicles of miners and traders as they carried cobalt ore from artisanal mines in Kolwezi to a market where minerals are traded. Independent traders buy the ore, without questioning where it has come from or how it has been mined. In turn, these traders sell the ore on to larger companies in the DRC that process and export it. One of the largest companies at the centre of this trade is Congo Dongfang Mining International (CDM). CDM is a 100% owned subsidiary of China-based Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Company Ltd (Huayou Cobalt), one of the world’s largest manufacturers of cobalt products. Huayou Cobalt sells the processed cobalt to battery component manufacturers in China and South Korea, who in turn sell to battery manufacturers, including market leaders Samsung SDI, LG Chem and ATL.",{"type":574,"attrs":637,"content":638},{"textAlign":49},[639],{"text":640,"type":579},"Following this supply chain, we were able to identify that cobalt mined by children and adults in these dangerous and abusive conditions could be entering the supply chains of many of the world’s leading technology brands. These include Apple, Dell, Samsung, Sony, Microsoft and LG, as well as the Chinese electric vehicle company BYD, and automobile giants Daimler and Volkswagen. In seeking to understand how this international supply chain works, as well as to ask questions about each company’s due diligence policy, Amnesty International wrote to Huayou Cobalt and 24 other companies in China, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, UK, and the USA. Their replies are available on Amnesty International’s website.",{"type":574,"attrs":642,"content":643},{"textAlign":49},[644],{"text":645,"type":579},"Our findings received massive global news coverage, with over 170 different links for news and other online coverage within two days of the report’s publication. Here in the UK, our research was carried by all of the leading newspapers, including the Financial Times. Even future consumers heard about the link between smartphones and child labour in the DRC: our research was headline news on a famous BBC TV children’s programme that is shown in classrooms across the country.",{"type":574,"attrs":647,"content":648},{"textAlign":49},[649],{"text":650,"type":579},"The interest was global, with the report picked up in key markets including China.",{"type":574,"attrs":652,"content":653},{"textAlign":49},[654],{"text":655,"type":579},"Amnesty’s campaigning on this issue has only just begun, and we will continue to watch how companies and governments respond to our findings.",{"type":574,"attrs":657,"content":658},{"textAlign":49},[659],{"text":660,"type":579},"So what then should companies do?",{"type":574,"attrs":662,"content":663},{"textAlign":49},[],{"type":574,"attrs":665,"content":666},{"textAlign":49},[667],{"text":668,"type":579},"Those that have been buying cobalt, or products containing cobalt, from artisanal mines may be tempted to address the risk of negative publicity by discontinuing a trading relationship with a supplier or embargoing DRC cobalt. However, the fact is that many companies have been sourcing cobalt from these mines for many years without even checking or addressing the dangerous conditions in which adults and children mine cobalt, and so this would absolutely be the wrong thing to do. Companies have a responsibility to undertake remedial action if human rights abuses have occurred at any point in an existing or past supply chain and cannot simply walk away from the adults and children who have suffered human rights abuses for years.",{"type":574,"attrs":670,"content":671},{"textAlign":49},[672],{"text":673,"type":579},"International guidance, such as the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains of Minerals from Conflict-Affected and High-Risk Areas (OECD Guidance), set out the responsibility of upstream and downstream companies to manage, mitigate and remediate adverse impacts. Upstream and downstream companies should take remedial action on the harms suffered by adult and child artisanal miners.",{"type":574,"attrs":675,"content":676},{"textAlign":49},[677],{"text":678,"type":579},"UNICEF estimated in 2014 that approximately 40,000 boys and girls work in artisanal mines across southern DRC, many of them involved in cobalt mining.",{"type":574,"attrs":680,"content":681},{"textAlign":49},[682],{"text":683,"type":579},"It is widely recognised internationally that the involvement of children in mining constitutes one of the worst forms of child labour, which governments are required to prohibit and eliminate.",{"type":574,"attrs":685,"content":686},{"textAlign":49},[687],{"text":688,"type":579},"Our research showed that the nature of the work children do in artisanal cobalt mining in the DRC is hazardous, and likely to harm their health and safety. Companies must, in cooperation with national authorities, international agencies and civil society, develop and implement a plan to remove children from the worst forms of child labour, support children’s reintegration into the school system and address children’s health, physical, educational, economic and psychological needs. Similarly, there is a need to put in place health monitoring and treatment services for artisanal miners to assess and treat occupational diseases.",{"type":574,"attrs":690,"content":691},{"textAlign":49},[692],{"text":693,"type":579},"The OECD Guidance also suggests that one of the measures that upstream companies, individually or through joint assessment teams, should take to “minimise the risk of exposure of artisanal miners to abusive practices” is to support “host countries governments’ efforts for the progressive professionalization and formalisation of the artisanal sector”. Both upstream and downstream companies should consider ways in which they can support the DRC government’s policy of creating new areas where artisanal mining will be formalised and regulated.",{"type":574,"attrs":695,"content":696},{"textAlign":49},[697],{"text":698,"type":579},"All companies must put in place human rights due diligence systems, so that they can identify where the cobalt in their products comes from, and under what conditions it has been mined and traded.",{"type":574,"attrs":700,"content":701},{"textAlign":49},[702],{"text":703,"type":579},"Companies must make this information public.",{"type":574,"attrs":705,"content":706},{"textAlign":49},[707],{"text":708,"type":579},"A practical guide for how such due diligence should be carried out for supply chains has been provided by the OECD Guidance, which reflects the current international standard and lays out a five step process for all companies involved in the mineral supply chain to follow.",{"type":574,"attrs":710,"content":711},{"textAlign":49},[712],{"text":713,"type":579},"Companies that purchase cobalt, or components containing the mineral, have no excuse for not conducting such due diligence steps. T he DRC is by far the world’s largest source of cobalt and the poor conditions of its artisanal mines, and the presence of children working in them, has been reported publicly in the past.",{"type":574,"attrs":715,"content":716},{"textAlign":49},[717],{"text":718,"type":579},"Finally, other governments also need to act. Our research exposed a clear gap when it comes to home states (the countries where multinational companies are headquartered), such as China, the US, South Korea and many others, playing a meaningful role and requiring greater transparency around cobalt supply chain practices.",{"type":574,"attrs":720,"content":721},{"textAlign":49},[722],{"text":723,"type":579},"Currently, no country legally requires companies to publicly report on their cobalt supply chains. Under international human rights law, states have a duty to protect against human rights abuses by all actors, including businesses. A good way to fulfil this duty would be for governments to enact and enforce laws requiring corporate due diligence and public disclosure in relation to cobalt and other minerals.",{"type":574,"attrs":725,"content":726},{"textAlign":49},[],{"type":574,"attrs":728,"content":729},{"textAlign":49},[730],{"text":731,"type":579},"For many of the tech companies that use cobalt, supply chain due diligence requirements for all minerals – as laid out by the OECD Guidance – are not new. Additionally, many of them are USlisted companies subject to reporting requirements under the Dodd-Frank Act, which requires them to check whether certain minerals in their products (tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold) are contributing to the funding of armed groups or fuelling human rights abuses in the DRC or surrounding countries.",{"type":574,"attrs":733,"content":734},{"textAlign":49},[735],{"text":736,"type":579},"Yet it is clear that some of these companies are currently failing to operationalise the international standard for mineral supply chains beyond whatever measures they have put in place for 3T and gold. One company that we wrote to explicitly admitted, and others implied, that this is because cobalt is not covered under US legislation.",{"type":574,"attrs":738,"content":739},{"textAlign":49},[740],{"text":741,"type":579},"This admission clearly underscores the value of law in influencing corporate behaviour.","In January 2016, Amnesty International released a report on artisanal cobalt mining and alleged human rights abuses in the DRC. Here, Mark Dummett, co-author of ‘This is what we die for’, explains the findings of the report, the subsequent global reaction and outlines the changes needed in corporate due diligence to prevent such abuses from continuing",[744],{"slug":562,"name":563,"content":745},{"job_title":565,"image":746,"bio":568,"linkedin":569},{"filename":567},"\u003C!--#storyblok#{\"name\": \"article\", \"space\": \"\", \"uid\": \"f1ae8110-d4e7-47ab-92cb-645290424fde\", \"id\": \"\"}-->","article",[750,753,755],{"slug":751,"name":752},"batteries","Batteries",{"slug":754,"name":115},"cobalt",{"slug":756,"name":757},"critical-minerals","Critical Minerals","private",{"id":49,"alt":760,"name":760,"focus":760,"title":760,"source":760,"filename":761,"copyright":760,"fieldtype":762,"meta_data":763,"is_external_url":51},"","https://a.storyblok.com/f/287943243085208/9932dee275/bm-screen-shot-2016-07-21-at-141643.png","asset",{"alt":760,"title":760,"source":760,"copyright":760},"Jul 21, 2016","21st July 2016",[],[],1792688600155]