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Then the law needs to change. It's unconscionable for this to be happening. You make the buyers of that cobalt start caring, you'll make the producers of that

Then the law needs to change. It's unconscionable for this to be happening. You make the buyers of that cobalt start caring, you'll make the producers of that cobalt start caring.

afarrell 7y ago
Or the producers of that cobalt will just find someone else in Shenzhen to sell to. This problem should be tackled, but it is worth thinking about likely unintended consequences of whatever power structures you set up to tackle it. I hear the Belgians have some experience ending slavery in parts of Africa.
- richmarr 7y ago
  If you offer them a better margin to mine in a more ethically palettable way, and any up-front resources to do so, then it's reasonable to assume that they will. I think this quickly gets into the details though. How much safety is required and what does it cost? Are there alternative materials that cost less than ethical cobalt? What age restrictions should be put on the labour involved and what will those children do instead (both with their time and to earn money)? Where will the adult workers come from to replace those kids and what training do they need?
  - manigandham 7y ago
    Places where rule of the land (or lack thereof) already lets this happen is unlikely to change simply from increased margins. Most likely they’ll just pocket the increased profit with no improvement in conditions.
    - adaml_623 7y ago
      Responsible businesses do full inspections of their supply chains. All the way back to the farms which grow the food.
      - lotsofpulp 7y ago
        How about the factories where the fertilizer and pesticide/insecticide is made? My point is it is unreasonable to expect a business to be able to do the kind of oversight that would require the reach of government agencies.
      - count 7y ago
        Taking on that responsibility would make defending against these types of lawsuits significantly harder...
  - jcranmer 7y ago
    Or, they'll launder the proceeds of the unethical mining by sending it through a few intermediaries so that it is now certified as ethically mined. We've tried this before, and failed at it before (with respect to diamonds).
- bilbo0s 7y ago
  It was easier for Belgium to end slavery in the Congo, as they were the ones who started the slavery in the Congo. The US is in a bit of a different position. Rwandan warlords are not nice people, and are generally tolerated by a Rwandan government which is itself corrupt. They want to go over the border and kill, maim, steal minerals, and enslave, then what can you do if you don't want to risk direct confrontation with them? This trade is difficult to break in the current environment. We'd need to get tough on people who we have generally not wanted to get tough with because we want to keep them friendly for a lot of reasons. Not least of which is growing Chinese (and European) influence in the nations of coastal Africa. We know very well that some of the people we need are less than savory. Some of the trade we engage in is less than honest. But it's not just the coltan trade that's influencing our behavior here. There are a lot of different and competing strategic considerations at stake. My own opinion? This is probably going to blow up in our face in the future, and we'll spend the latter half of this century, (or maybe the first half of the next?), attempting to convince a rapidly developing sub-saharan Africa that we're deeply sorry for the past but you can trust us going forward.
  - afarrell 7y ago
    Belgium didn't start slavery in the Congo, it introduced a much wider-scale and more horrifying[1] form of it. But Belgium was originally "given" to King Leopold with the justification that he pledged to end[2] the slave trade that already existed there. Something that surprised me: Disney centered their 2016 film The Legend of Tarzan in this context. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrocities_in_the_Congo_Free_State https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrocities_in_the_Congo_Free_S... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo%E2%80%93Arab_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo%E2%80%93Arab_War
yibg 7y ago
Why stop at the direct buyer then? Why not make the end consumer liable too? Make them care, you make the buyers of that cobalt start caring even more right? Heck why don’t we just extend liability down to the end of the chain for everything?
- richmarr 7y ago
  Because the direct buyer is the one who has the most information and the most control. In contrast the end user has almost no information, so punishing them is both unfair and ineffective.
  - mbostleman 7y ago
    So now that you have the information, I trust you have stopped purchasing these products beginning today?
    - richmarr 7y ago
      Information, and control. All of the products I can buy may or may not contain this unthetical cobalt. I don't know which, and my personal buying choice doesn't effect anything. What are you proposing, that everyone with a smartphone or a computer be sued? How will that work?
      - mbostleman 7y ago
        What are you proposing, that if your vendor is sued you don't pay for it?
        shantly 7y ago
        Vendors that don't get sued can compete better in the market and survive longer, and their prices won't go up (except maybe a little as rents if they have few competitors and those have been forced to raise their prices because they've lost a lot of lawsuits), right? [EDIT] I'd don't really give a fuck about DVs but I'd love if some of the people DVing my comments on this thread would explain how I've misunderstood orthodox "right"-wing approaches to market-based regulation and commons management, since I don't think I'm claiming anything particularly radical here—quite small-c conservative, actually—and would like to know whether and how I'm missing the mark on it.
solidasparagus 7y ago
I don't think this makes much sense. The mineral supply chain in that part of the world is ridiculously hard to track. Even when you stop buying directly from the DRC, the minerals flow over the borders (see how Rwandan coltan exports jumped when people stopped buying DRC 'conflict' coltan). That part of the DRC is basically beyond the reach of the Congolese government and the bordering countries have been waging proxy wars for at least a decade in the DRC, specifically for mineral control. The problem needs to be addressed at the local level, not at the international purchasing level - this may make the tech giants purchase minerals from a new provider, but that is a cosmetic change that won't actually impact people on the ground in the DRC.
- FussyZeus 7y ago
  > I don't think this makes much sense. The mineral supply chain in that part of the world is ridiculously hard to track. It's been designed to be hard to track. Just because the infrastructure is a little hit and miss and the people are overall poorer doesn't mean it's impossible to reliably manage supply lines. The problem is corporations from the "West" don't want to know where the stuff is coming from because they know damn well it's sweatshop labor, minors, political prisoners, and who knows what else. That's why it's so fucking cheap. Google knows my fucking shoe size at this point: if they, or Apple, or Samsung, or any other company wanted to know, they would know. The problem is they don't know because when people ask uncomfortable questions, they just shrug their shoulders and go "well we aren't responsible." Fuck that. They should be responsible.
  - solidasparagus 7y ago
    > 'infrastructure is a little hit and miss' Lol. The problem isn't a lack of roads, it's the fact that parts of eastern DRC are still effectively war zones. This isn't tech companies not caring, this is an ongoing war, a government incapable of controlling the country (and hardly the good guys even where they do have control), rebel groups (which have control over minerals and need income) running their own proto-states, long-standing tribal conflicts, militarily powerful neighbors with vested interests in keeping the conflict going and DRC's precious resources flowing over the borders, a widespread Ebola outbreak, and hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing their homes. Google 'wanting to know' isn't going to solve the chaos in that part of the world that leads to the supply chain tracking problems.
rubbingalcohol 7y ago
I think you got downvoted because people like Teslas more than they care about African children.
- DSingularity 7y ago
  Seriously. I know HN is all about capitalism but it doesn’t have to reach these levels of disregard for human life! Besides, what would be the net result of stricter regulations on these trades? Prices go up and the profits of tech companies decrease ever-so slightly. And then what? The board and the CEO pocket a little less but tens of thousands of children will live better lives.
  - LanceH 7y ago
    When a radical action is proposed and someone disagrees with that action, it doesn't mean they are in support of the symptom. In this case, it is universally agreed that child slave labor is bad. These lawsuits call for punishing a recipient many transactions away from the mining. It's not calling on the governments, nor the immediate companies involved. Nor is it calling for all parties who are recipients of cobalt, which would include end users. It is just piling onto the two minutes of hate surrounding a couple megacorps. This is so clearly something that needs to be resolved through legislation and diplomacy. These companies have been purchasing cobalt legally (presumably). If they haven't, a civil lawsuit isn't the answer; criminal charges are.
- nradov 7y ago
  I don't care about Teslas. I down voted because the proposal wouldn't be an effective solution. Instead of trying to impose additional requirements on buyers, a better approach would be to work at the national governmental level through a combination of carrots (foreign aid and advice) and sticks (sanctions and tariffs for countries that don't meet labor standards).
- dang 7y ago
  This sort of flamebait is not ok here. No more of this please. Going on about downvotes is also against the site guidelines, not only because it's boring (as they point out), but also because it's usually wrong. The GP comment has by now been heavily upvoted. Meanwhile off-topic complaints like this one linger on as uncollected garbage in a thread. Please don't. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
vinniejames 7y ago
The same could be said about the Nike shoes you're wearing. By that logic, the company should be sued for buying the Cobalt to make phones. Shouldn't you, the consumer also be sued for buying the phone, containing the Cobalt?
vorpalhex 7y ago
I agree, the Swiss should crack down on their mining companies who are running child labor schemes.
pc86 7y ago
Then make that argument and lobby the legislature. But you don't change law by bringing irrelevant lawsuits, that's not how it works.
- bilbo0s 7y ago
  I don't think they intend to change the law. I think these people are out to change the behavior, regardless of what the law is now or in the future. Everyone is playing dirty. And I'm pretty sure they're going to play even dirtier in the future.
jeffreyrogers 7y ago
There isn't really a government in the part of Congo where Cobalt is mined. There are many militia groups there and the government has very little ability to enforce the law. Changing the law in the US does very little to prevent this.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
Giornito 7y ago
How many nations are interested in cutting the middleman? How many nations' officials would like to see corruption stop? How many people would prefer to work under dismal conditions as opposed to not having a job? If we are going to blame the the corporation purchasing the goods, we also need to blame ourselves for not doing our very best to source our purchase choices either.
LatteLazy 7y ago
Presumably you're willing to stand trial for your part in that supply chain? And ~2bn other smart phone owners will also need to be imprisoned?
dang 7y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21824898 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21824898.

Then the law needs to change. It's unconscionable for this to be happening. You make the buyers of that cobalt start caring, you'll make the producers of that cobalt start caring.

afarrell 7y ago

Or the producers of that cobalt will just find someone else in Shenzhen to sell to. This problem should be tackled, but it is worth thinking about likely unintended consequences of whatever power structures you set up to tackle it. I hear the Belgians have some experience ending slavery in parts of Africa.

richmarr 7y ago
If you offer them a better margin to mine in a more ethically palettable way, and any up-front resources to do so, then it's reasonable to assume that they will. I think this quickly gets into the details though. How much safety is required and what does it cost? Are there alternative materials that cost less than ethical cobalt? What age restrictions should be put on the labour involved and what will those children do instead (both with their time and to earn money)? Where will the adult workers come from to replace those kids and what training do they need?
- manigandham 7y ago
  Places where rule of the land (or lack thereof) already lets this happen is unlikely to change simply from increased margins. Most likely they’ll just pocket the increased profit with no improvement in conditions.
  - adaml_623 7y ago
    Responsible businesses do full inspections of their supply chains. All the way back to the farms which grow the food.
    - lotsofpulp 7y ago
      How about the factories where the fertilizer and pesticide/insecticide is made? My point is it is unreasonable to expect a business to be able to do the kind of oversight that would require the reach of government agencies.
    - count 7y ago
      Taking on that responsibility would make defending against these types of lawsuits significantly harder...
- jcranmer 7y ago
  Or, they'll launder the proceeds of the unethical mining by sending it through a few intermediaries so that it is now certified as ethically mined. We've tried this before, and failed at it before (with respect to diamonds).
bilbo0s 7y ago
It was easier for Belgium to end slavery in the Congo, as they were the ones who started the slavery in the Congo. The US is in a bit of a different position. Rwandan warlords are not nice people, and are generally tolerated by a Rwandan government which is itself corrupt. They want to go over the border and kill, maim, steal minerals, and enslave, then what can you do if you don't want to risk direct confrontation with them? This trade is difficult to break in the current environment. We'd need to get tough on people who we have generally not wanted to get tough with because we want to keep them friendly for a lot of reasons. Not least of which is growing Chinese (and European) influence in the nations of coastal Africa. We know very well that some of the people we need are less than savory. Some of the trade we engage in is less than honest. But it's not just the coltan trade that's influencing our behavior here. There are a lot of different and competing strategic considerations at stake. My own opinion? This is probably going to blow up in our face in the future, and we'll spend the latter half of this century, (or maybe the first half of the next?), attempting to convince a rapidly developing sub-saharan Africa that we're deeply sorry for the past but you can trust us going forward.
- afarrell 7y ago
  Belgium didn't start slavery in the Congo, it introduced a much wider-scale and more horrifying[1] form of it. But Belgium was originally "given" to King Leopold with the justification that he pledged to end[2] the slave trade that already existed there. Something that surprised me: Disney centered their 2016 film The Legend of Tarzan in this context. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrocities_in_the_Congo_Free_State https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrocities_in_the_Congo_Free_S... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo%E2%80%93Arab_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo%E2%80%93Arab_War

yibg 7y ago

Why stop at the direct buyer then? Why not make the end consumer liable too? Make them care, you make the buyers of that cobalt start caring even more right? Heck why don’t we just extend liability down to the end of the chain for everything?

richmarr 7y ago
Because the direct buyer is the one who has the most information and the most control. In contrast the end user has almost no information, so punishing them is both unfair and ineffective.
- mbostleman 7y ago
  So now that you have the information, I trust you have stopped purchasing these products beginning today?
  - richmarr 7y ago
    Information, and control. All of the products I can buy may or may not contain this unthetical cobalt. I don't know which, and my personal buying choice doesn't effect anything. What are you proposing, that everyone with a smartphone or a computer be sued? How will that work?
    - mbostleman 7y ago
      What are you proposing, that if your vendor is sued you don't pay for it?
      - shantly 7y ago
        Vendors that don't get sued can compete better in the market and survive longer, and their prices won't go up (except maybe a little as rents if they have few competitors and those have been forced to raise their prices because they've lost a lot of lawsuits), right? [EDIT] I'd don't really give a fuck about DVs but I'd love if some of the people DVing my comments on this thread would explain how I've misunderstood orthodox "right"-wing approaches to market-based regulation and commons management, since I don't think I'm claiming anything particularly radical here—quite small-c conservative, actually—and would like to know whether and how I'm missing the mark on it.

solidasparagus 7y ago

I don't think this makes much sense. The mineral supply chain in that part of the world is ridiculously hard to track. Even when you stop buying directly from the DRC, the minerals flow over the borders (see how Rwandan coltan exports jumped when people stopped buying DRC 'conflict' coltan). That part of the DRC is basically beyond the reach of the Congolese government and the bordering countries have been waging proxy wars for at least a decade in the DRC, specifically for mineral control. The problem needs to be addressed at the local level, not at the international purchasing level - this may make the tech giants purchase minerals from a new provider, but that is a cosmetic change that won't actually impact people on the ground in the DRC.

FussyZeus 7y ago
> I don't think this makes much sense. The mineral supply chain in that part of the world is ridiculously hard to track. It's been designed to be hard to track. Just because the infrastructure is a little hit and miss and the people are overall poorer doesn't mean it's impossible to reliably manage supply lines. The problem is corporations from the "West" don't want to know where the stuff is coming from because they know damn well it's sweatshop labor, minors, political prisoners, and who knows what else. That's why it's so fucking cheap. Google knows my fucking shoe size at this point: if they, or Apple, or Samsung, or any other company wanted to know, they would know. The problem is they don't know because when people ask uncomfortable questions, they just shrug their shoulders and go "well we aren't responsible." Fuck that. They should be responsible.
- solidasparagus 7y ago
  > 'infrastructure is a little hit and miss' Lol. The problem isn't a lack of roads, it's the fact that parts of eastern DRC are still effectively war zones. This isn't tech companies not caring, this is an ongoing war, a government incapable of controlling the country (and hardly the good guys even where they do have control), rebel groups (which have control over minerals and need income) running their own proto-states, long-standing tribal conflicts, militarily powerful neighbors with vested interests in keeping the conflict going and DRC's precious resources flowing over the borders, a widespread Ebola outbreak, and hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing their homes. Google 'wanting to know' isn't going to solve the chaos in that part of the world that leads to the supply chain tracking problems.

rubbingalcohol 7y ago

I think you got downvoted because people like Teslas more than they care about African children.

DSingularity 7y ago
Seriously. I know HN is all about capitalism but it doesn’t have to reach these levels of disregard for human life! Besides, what would be the net result of stricter regulations on these trades? Prices go up and the profits of tech companies decrease ever-so slightly. And then what? The board and the CEO pocket a little less but tens of thousands of children will live better lives.
- LanceH 7y ago
  When a radical action is proposed and someone disagrees with that action, it doesn't mean they are in support of the symptom. In this case, it is universally agreed that child slave labor is bad. These lawsuits call for punishing a recipient many transactions away from the mining. It's not calling on the governments, nor the immediate companies involved. Nor is it calling for all parties who are recipients of cobalt, which would include end users. It is just piling onto the two minutes of hate surrounding a couple megacorps. This is so clearly something that needs to be resolved through legislation and diplomacy. These companies have been purchasing cobalt legally (presumably). If they haven't, a civil lawsuit isn't the answer; criminal charges are.
nradov 7y ago
I don't care about Teslas. I down voted because the proposal wouldn't be an effective solution. Instead of trying to impose additional requirements on buyers, a better approach would be to work at the national governmental level through a combination of carrots (foreign aid and advice) and sticks (sanctions and tariffs for countries that don't meet labor standards).
dang 7y ago
This sort of flamebait is not ok here. No more of this please. Going on about downvotes is also against the site guidelines, not only because it's boring (as they point out), but also because it's usually wrong. The GP comment has by now been heavily upvoted. Meanwhile off-topic complaints like this one linger on as uncollected garbage in a thread. Please don't. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

vinniejames 7y ago

The same could be said about the Nike shoes you're wearing. By that logic, the company should be sued for buying the Cobalt to make phones. Shouldn't you, the consumer also be sued for buying the phone, containing the Cobalt?

vorpalhex 7y ago

I agree, the Swiss should crack down on their mining companies who are running child labor schemes.

pc86 7y ago

Then make that argument and lobby the legislature. But you don't change law by bringing irrelevant lawsuits, that's not how it works.

bilbo0s 7y ago
I don't think they intend to change the law. I think these people are out to change the behavior, regardless of what the law is now or in the future. Everyone is playing dirty. And I'm pretty sure they're going to play even dirtier in the future.

jeffreyrogers 7y ago

There isn't really a government in the part of Congo where Cobalt is mined. There are many militia groups there and the government has very little ability to enforce the law. Changing the law in the US does very little to prevent this.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

Giornito 7y ago

How many nations are interested in cutting the middleman? How many nations' officials would like to see corruption stop? How many people would prefer to work under dismal conditions as opposed to not having a job? If we are going to blame the the corporation purchasing the goods, we also need to blame ourselves for not doing our very best to source our purchase choices either.

LatteLazy 7y ago

Presumably you're willing to stand trial for your part in that supply chain? And ~2bn other smart phone owners will also need to be imprisoned?

dang 7y ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21824898 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21824898.