Conflict Minerals and Analysis of the Proposed EU Regulation

The aim of this thesis is to analyse the impacts of the European regulation on the import and trade in so-called conflict minerals and to evaluate the effectiveness of proposed options of the European regulation on the market. The conclusion is dealing with the overall impact of the regulation on the improvement of the security, economic and social situation in the conflict areas. For the purpose of this thesis, the analysis is focused on the Great Lakes region in Central Africa. The theoretical part is focused on the overall definition of the issue, on particularity of the market with conflict minerals and analysis of specific agents or companies involved in the supply chain. This part deals with the development of European and international legislation affecting trade with conflict minerals, especially in the form of the OECD Due Diligence Guidelines, the relevant section of the Dodd-Frank Act and other inciatives of particular countries such as Analytical Fingerprint (AFP). Identified targets of the emerging European regulation are prevention of armed groups financing, support of transparent supply chain and improvement the socio-economic situation in the region. All these targets are put into context of the impact of regulation on companies and importers. The analytical part is based on the Impact Assessment document of the European Comission from 2014, which defines different options of the future form of the European regulation. Selected options are compared with similar, already-established European regulation on rough diamonds in the Great Lakes region and with the American Act on the conflict minerals trade (the Dodd-Frank Act). The aim of this section is, by correlating the impact of these specific, already-established regualtions with the proposed alternative options by the European Commission, evaluate the most efficient solution to the issue, in relation to given targets.