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Case

In December $2019,$ right before the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, Intel$$s director of supply chain sustainability and the manager of its responsible minerals program, traveled to Rwanda in central Africa, to visit mines and refining facilities in a remote mountainous area $5,000$ feet above sea level. The purpose of their trip was to understand better exactly where the minerals used in its chips and other products originated, so they could assure they were ethically produced. Intel had been an early leader in the effort to bring social responsibility to its minerals supply chain. In $2014,$ it had become the first electronics firm to announce that its products would be certified as conflict$-$free. This meant they would contain no conflict minerals$$tantalum$,$ tungsten, tin, or gold sourced from mines that financed horrific civil conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo $($DRC$)$ and nearby countries.

Of the four conflict minerals, the one most important to Intel and other electronics companies is tantalum$.$ Columbite$-$tantalite$,$ commonly known as $$coltan$,$ is a black metallic ore. When refined, it produces tantalum$,$ which is used to regulate electricity in portable consumer electronics, such as smartphones, laptops, play stations, and digital cameras. The largest share of coltan comes from Africa; other sources include Australia, Brazil, and Canada.

In the late $2000$s$,$ a common goal to ban conflict minerals emerged among members of an oddly matched group$$the electronics industry, the United Nations, governments, and human rights organizations. Their efforts led, ultimately, to a set of international guidelines, national laws, and voluntary initiatives whose goal was to keep the electronics industry and its customers from inadvertently supporting killing, sexual assault, and labor abuses.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is a nation of $87$ million people in central Africa, covering a vast region the size of Western Europe. Since the late $1990$s$,$ the DRC has been the site of a brutal regional conflict, in which armed militias, including some from neighboring states, have fought for control. Despite the presence of United Nations troops, as many as $5$ million people have died$$the most in any conflict since World War II$.$ Warring groups have used sexual assault as a weapon to control the population; an estimated $200,000$ Congolese women and girls have been raped, often in front of their husbands and families.

The United Nations and several NGOs reported that militias had systematically looted coltan and other minerals from eastern Congo, using the profits to fund their operations. Once mined$$whether in the Congo or elsewhere$$raw coltan made its way through a complex, multistep global supply chain. Local traders sold to regional traders, who shipped the ore to processing companies such as H$.$C$.$ Starck $($Germany$),$ Cabot Corporation $($United States$),$ and Ningxia $($China$).$ Their smelters produced refined tantalum powder, which was then sold to parts makers such as Kemet $($United States$),$ Epcos $($Germany$),$ and Flextronics $($Singapore$).$ They sold, in turn, to original equipment manufacturers such as Dell $($United States$),$ Sony $($Japan$),$ and Nokia $($Finland$).$

As public awareness of atrocities in the Congo grew, governments began to act. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, an alliance of mostly European nations, issued guidance for companies that wished to responsibly source minerals. These guidelines were widely followed, and in $2021,$ the European Union required all its member nations to fully comply with them. In the United States in $2010,$ Congress passed the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act $($also known as the Dodd$-$Frank Act$)$ This law included a provision, Section $1502,$ which required companies to disclose whether tantalum$,$ tin, tungsten, and gold used in their products had come from the DRC or adjoining countries.

Along with governments, companies also acted. For its part, Intel sent teams to visit smelters and refiners in its complex supply chain, educating their partners about conflict minerals and collecting information about the origin of raw materials they processed. The company also joined with other firms to set up a voluntary system in which an independent third$-$party auditor evaluated smelters and refiners and designated them as having systems in place to assure their raw materials were conflict$-$free. Minerals were $$bagged and tagged$$ and then tracked through each step of the supply chain. This effort eventually evolved into the Responsible Minerals Initiative, an alliance of more than $400$ companies and industry associations. In $2020,$ Intel reported that $99$ percent of the smelters and refiners in its supply chain participated in this program.

Intel and other like$-$minded companies were particularly concerned that they remove from their products only conflict minerals, not minerals coming from legitimate mines in confl