East Africa: Despite Legal Attacks, Conflict Minerals Ban Gets Stronger

8 January 2014

Washington — Major manufacturing and business groups on Tuesday urged a court here to roll back a new U.S. regulation that would soon require major manufacturers to ensure that their global supply chains are free of minerals used to fund violence in the Great Lakes region of central Africa.

Yet the previous day, Intel, the major computer hardware manufacturer, announced the world's first product formally dubbed free of such materials, stating that its microprocessors would no longer use "conflict minerals". The announcement highlights trends that advocates of greater supply chain accountability say are already well underway, and which they suggest belie parts of the legal case against the rule.

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