Regarding the legal merits of the case, I notice that don't see any coverage of a proposed theory of liability in the article. The lawsuit text is more informative, pointing at a bunch of sections of US Code about forced labor, trafficking, and sale into voluntary servitude — for instance, 18 U.S. Code § 1589 which notes, "(b) Whoever knowingly benefits, financially or by receiving anything of value, from participation in a venture which has engaged in the providing or obtaining of labor or services by any of the means described in subsection (a), knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that the venture has engaged in the providing or obtaining of labor or services by any of such means, shall be punished as provided in subsection (d)."
But I'm not at all certain the court is willing consider the purchase of goods on the world market to be equivalent to "participation" in this venture, even if the suit asserts that "The Cobalt Supply Chain Is a “Venture”". Is there meaningful precedent for interpreting a supply chain in this way?
Just for the sake of completeness, "knowingly" is a specific legalese term. It means you know the goods are coming from the prohibited source, but still decide to buy it.
The total spectrum looks like this:
- purposefully: you won't buy cobalt, unless it says "mined by slave children" on the tin
- knowingly: you buy cobalt even if it says "mined by slave children" on the tin
- recklessly: you know that 90% of world cobalt is mined by slave children. You hope that yours comes from the remaining 10%
- negligently: you know that 10% of world cobalt is mined by slave children, so you decided to take a chance and bought yours without checking
A quick search shows that past lawsuits against Nestle and other companies for child labor in their supply chain listed consumers as the plaintiffs claiming damage from false advertising and non -disclosure [1]. These cases have ended up being dismissed.
The difference is that in this case the children and their families are the actual plaintiffs which presumably changes the legal merits. I still suspect that this case will also be dismissed.
I think the point is that these lawsuits are intended to raise public awareness of the issue which will ideally put pressure the companies being sued to institute voluntary policing of their supply chain. Nestle, for example, has done a lot over the last decade to eliminate child labor in their supply chain.
(Edit) It looks like there is a supreme Court precedent related to the Nestle case that held that child/family plaintiffs did have standing to sue for child labor in the supply chain [2]
BUT 1) Child labor in Africa is a serious problem that needs to be addressed, and just about anything sourced from Africa will have this problem.
2) The Kamoto mine in question is a copper mine. Cobalt is a secondary product. (One could just about as legitimately call attention to products using copper.)
3) Tesla is targeted in the lawsuit but does not use Congolese cobalt.
4) Possible exception to this is some possible future Tesla cells could come from LGChem which gets some of its lithium from Umicore. However, LGChem is the primary supplier of cells for GM and several other EV producers... Yet they are not named in this lawsuit.
5) Kamoto is a modern industrial mine. Artisanal mines are where child labor is used. Unskilled child labor is of dubious use in highly mechanized industrial mining sites.
6) However, Kamoto has had problems with pirate artisanal mines on its property and has tried to get the Congolese army to help keep them out. (So I guess the lawsuit would be that Kamoto has not been able to keep out illegal artisanal mines from its property?)
7) Regardless of all these points, we NEED to stop this dangerous child labor in Africa, and it's probably a good thing that this sort of thing is drawing attention to the issue.
(Note, I'm mentioning Tesla here because I'm most familiar with it and it's also mentioned most in the thread, but it's possible similar arguments apply to other companies listed: It seems they're listed because they're well-known, large tech companies, not necessarily due to amount of cobalt use or even use of unethical cobalt at all.)
The fact they'd even need to have to try to get the Congolese army to enforce what happens on their own mine property says a lot about the problem.
It's largely just a security problem. But I'm sure the activists don't want violent military guys pushing off the pirate mines.
The other question is the pipelines that purchase from the 'artisanal' mines. Those people could be targeted and better regulated.
But as we've seen in the diamond and gold industries that's been a very hard thing to do in African countries without stable governments or strong incentives to stop them.
If the goal is to actually stop it and not some vindictive pursuit of western companies who people want to take all of the blame, then upping security and oversight of the mines with financial goals and on-sight oversight teams to measure progress. Plus some financial incentives to the various players to reports the dangerous supply lines which are using kids, so it's not putting a poor person between having something and total poverty out for some moral purpose which they will disregard.
This is what trade tariffs should be used for -- to level the playing field to prevent the global arbitrage of labor based on unfair or shady practices.
If the DRC is going to allow (or ignore) child labor for Cobalt mining, then there should be tariffs that would make it so expensive that it would make Australian or Canadian Cobalt mines profitable (where we know the workers are fairly compensated and can work in safe environments).
If India is going to look the other way for poor labor practices in ship breaking then there should be a big tariff on the recycled steel that drives that industry. Making properly managed, safe ship breaking in well regulated countries competitive.
If China wants to allow heavy industrial production with no environmental protections, then there should be tariffs on that to make countries that do regulate industrial pollution competitive.
When these countries finally clean up their labor practices and make things safe and equitable for their workers and the environment, then the tariffs go away.
Companies should NOT be able to exploit repression, bullying unsafe practices, child labor or pollution by proxy etc. in order to reduce their costs by moving production to such a country. Trade tariffs, when wielded honestly and effectively should be a tool to prevent that.
Thanks for the extra info and the nuanced view! I agree that this kind of child labor should be stopped. In general, I also think that activist pressure, even if it is sometimes wrong about the specifics, is helpful to bring about positive change.
Apple has made a lot of progress on environmental and supplier labor issues over the last couple of years. And I'm pretty sure that getting picketed by activists and other pressure tactics played some role in that.
>Perhaps the only tragedy greater than the criminal destruction of the environment and the lives of the people of the Congo by these companies is the fact that it would be a rounding error on their income statements to fix the problem.
Eh, I don't think giving more money to the third world mining companies is going to guarantee they're going to stop using child labor. The simplest and least risky decision for the tech companies is to simply stop buying Congolese cobalt. It's "blood diamonds" all over again.
the liability is with the mining company and national government of Congo. the companies purchasing products can indeed put pressure on both to improve the working conditions of miners but in the end as with nearly every human tragedy, it comes down to the government to take responsibility for its actions and inaction. nothing changes until the local government has to change it.
I like how people get outraged at US tech giants but gracefully ignore the fact that Glencore which actually is the beneficiary of exploiting the children is based in Europe. It's no small target either with annual revenue of 219.8 billion in 2018 vs Google's 136.
Im sure the lawyers thought of that angle, but the mining company currently doesn’t do anything to effect change so they probably won’t unless their customers (tech companies) demand a change.
It really is unfortunate. The mining company should build out proper infrastructure but I’m guessing they just delegate to (corrupt) locals.
This is no different than all the global environmental issues we’re facing with large scale production facilities (bottled water, petroleum, etc. are a huge problem too). The indigenous populations are getting fucked over because they live in remote areas prime for exploitation. Then the factories close down and don’t clean anything up.
I should point out this is also happening in developed countries like Canada and the USA. For instance, what is the difference between children mining cobalt and children being exposed to mercury poisoning because their rivers upstream there’s a paper plant dumping toxic waste into the food supply in Ontario, or petrol industry in Texas poisoning neighboring schools with chemical fumes.
People really seem to be sharpening the axe for our big tech companies these days. Personally I find it disturbing. These companies are a river of prosperity for our people, especially software developers
Also interesting they included Tesla who has consistently used ethically sourced Cobalt (and others who have campaigned for ethical cobalt have acknowledged this).
I suspect folks commenting here are right that this is a publicity stunt.
EDIT: One good that could come from this publicity stunt, though, is more focus on the legitimate problem of child labor in Africa.
This feels like the episode of the The Good Place where they figure out the point system to get to the good place doesn't work because today's world is complicated...
>Michael uses the example of someone buying roses. A man hundreds of years ago got a lot of Good Place points because he grew and picked his own roses to give to his grandmother. However, when another man got roses for his grandmother, he lost points. It’s because he ordered them through a cell phone that was made in a sweatshop, the flowers were grown with toxic pesticides, delivered from thousands of miles away creating a large carbon footprint and the money went to a greedy CEO that sexually harassed women.
Incidentally, this is also one of the main points of “21 Lessons for the 21st Century” by Yuval Noah Harari. His argument is that human’s morality is built for interacting with a small tribe of people. You know where your moccasins come from, because the person who made them sleeps at the fire next to yours.
The problem is that this argument is a spectrum. For a consumer, who is (mostly) powerless to change the system, it might be (mostly) valid. But on the other end of the spectrum, the CEOs who actually could make a difference use the same argument to wash their hands. "It's all just business, the world is complicated, it's impossible to be perfect."
Ignoring the overall ethical issue for those employing the child laborers and looking purely at the lawsuit, it seems to have no merit and appears to be designed specifically to create a bad PR campaign for these companies and to draw attention to the issue. I suspect more drawing of attention than the bad PR, but still probably both are goals.
IANAL, but it seems very obvious from both the article and the lawsuit that there is no foundation to this. The article acknowledges this is essentially new ground, but it doesn't even seem to be based on anything legal at all. Looking at the actual complaint (http://iradvocates.org/sites/iradvocates.org/files/stamped%2...) it is very telling that in a 79 page suit barely over 2 pages is related to "jurisdiction and venue". That is a major component of this case, in addition to the totally untested claims being attempted here in this case. Having barely over 2 pages sort of tells you right off the bat that they know this is seriously thin.
Moving to the actual claim, they assert the US court is appropriate based on 18 U.S. Code § 1596. That seems reasonable based on the text. So moving along to the complaints, they claim violations of 18 U.S. Code § 1581, § 1584, § 1589, and § 1590.
1581 and 1584 very clearly and in no uncertain language apply directly to the people employing and controlling the labor itself. This is just a bad faith claim in my opinion and should be tossed out with prejudice.
1589 deals with those who benefit from such activity, which is where we start to see some semblance of sanity from this lawsuit. However, the language clearly indicates that it must be a "venture". This usually means direct agreements, shared ownership, etc. That is not the case in how these tech companies are acquiring these materials so toss that one out as well, unless of course you are prepared to accept that the open market and global supply chain is a venture. Which would then, by logical extension, include anyone and everyone operating on the entirety of the supply chain and market.
1590 reverts back to the same position as 1581 and 1584, dealing directly with those who have direct control over said labor. Again, toss this out with prejudice.
The whole lawsuit is crap as far as I'm concerned. Even a basic reading of the law shows that this suit is trash, regardless of good intentions or not. The only chance in hell they have is somehow convincing the court that Google, Apple, Dell, etc. are all working together in a fiendishly evil "venture" and that they all have direct control over this child labor. Good luck with that.
Honestly, if I were the judge, I'd throw this entire lawsuit in the trash and force the plaintiff(s) to pay the defense fees, if they had requested it via counter-suit.
> (a) Whoever commits an offense against the United States or aids, abets, counsels, commands, induces or procures its commission, is punishable as a principal.
> (b) Whoever willfully causes an act to be done which if directly performed by him or another would be an offense against the United States, is punishable as a principal.
That does give some more leeway to charge people with crimes here, but I don't think it is enough to sustain the claims of 1581 and 1584, since it seems to be meant to be read as "I'm not doing the dirty deed myself, but I'm telling my henchmen to do it."
I'm surprised they have a problem. The likes of GM is well known to trace their supply chain down as many levels as required to ensure this doesn't exist. GM has already faced this nightmare (I'm not sure if they were sued, or just got tired of protests) and takes care to ensure that they know who buys what from who all the way down. GM isn't a big tech buyer, but they are big enough to be worth changing your practices so you can sell to them. GM isn't the only company as well, just one that I know of from publicly available information.
The structural issue is abstraction caused by complicated supply chains. The public interface is what the consumer can easily see about the product like the user experience, branding, and the final purchase price, but it's supported by lots of hidden infrastructure associated the manufacture of every part embedded into the product, along with any services provided supporting the user experience.
Labeling laws are one way to try to make the hidden details of implementation public at the cost of more complex decision-making for consumers. Sometimes large companies can police the supply chain themselves, so that from a consumer perspective, avoiding exploitation becomes part of the brand.
A carbon tax attempts to bundle climate change costs into prices without changing the public API at all. This seems like the most thorough way to make sure every buyer at all levels of the supply chain takes this environmental cost into account in their decision-making, whether they are specifically thinking about it or not.
So it seems the best way to avoid this issue would be for cobalt based on child labor to be unavailable for purchase and a second-best way would be to make sure it's more expensive so that buyers within the supply chain will automatically avoid that dependency.
When we get to the point where consumers need to step in and do the decision-making because nobody else will then this is probably the most inefficient way to do it, but it seems the supply chain won't do it unless they are pushed into it?
Cobalt and tantalum are truly the Achilles heel of industrial economies.
No cobalt - no lithium batteries, and no mobile gadgets
No tantalum - no high spec capacitors omnipresent in compact power supplies, thus again no high value electronics as such unless you want to put huge electrolytic caps into your smartphone.
Tantalum capacitors have largely been replaced by ceramics in the last decade. Also, improvements in transistor tech and subsequently in switching power supply design mean you no longer need massive amounts of capacitance (nor a giant hand-wound toroidal transformer) for stable voltage output - you get a much more compact (and also higher-efficiency) power supply with a <100 uF high-performance ceramic and 0.2 uH chip inductor.
For example, compare this ancient LT app note [1] with this modern datasheet [2]. The former recommends 450 uH wirewound inductors (see especially the humorous page 22, which recommends selecting one with an appropriate weight of less than 0.25 pounds) and 1000 uF solid tantalum monster capacitors. The latter recommends a 10 uF 0402 ceramic capacitors and 4.7 uH 0805 chip inductors.
I blame the tech companies because part of the product is hiding the reality that produces it. If a cell phone had a picture of a kid bleeding in a mine, like a pack of cigarettes with a pair of black lungs, I think it would at least help transfer the responsibility to the consumer mentally.
My house has 6 computer monitors and I won't even say how many tv sets. I should be completely aware of how much that cost in earth and human but I got to feel smug by recycling the happy color cardboard it was wrapped with.
There's a mining-friendly city in Ontario literally named Cobalt where there are believed to be large deposits of the mineral. Let's not pretend these companies don't have any other option than to go through DRC for their supply.
Aside from the obvious issue that the tech giants do not directly employee these children (E.G they are employed by a supplier), what other issues come to mind?
The unfortunate thing about this whole situation is that, much like the conflict diamond issue, whether or not these companies are directly responsible due to this specific industry, it is merely a reflection of the terrible state of affairs and human rights in these countries. And stopping mining probably wouldn't improve things much.
Even if these companies (or we as consumers) were to stop doing business and pull out of these mining industries, the conflict and suffering in such countries would simply move to some other industry. The people and children would be toiling in agriculture, fishing, maybe piracy, or slave trade. And I do not delude myself to think that the supervisors in those industries are much more charitable than in mining.
While fixing the problems of mining should be done, the underlying root causes of kids having to mine cobalt would not disappear. So think more deliberately about whether band-aiding this one symptom will let you wake up with a clear conscience tomorrow.
> The lawsuit accuses those companies of "knowingly benefiting from and aiding and abetting the cruel and brutal use of young children." It has not been tested in court.
Might as well sue the end users too, if that's a viable theory.
Glencore 2018 Annual report: 'the recent appearance of excess levels of uranium in the cobalt hydroxide being produced at Katanga'
https://goo.gl/maps/g3VS4pfhS49eduVf8
Slap a tariff or tax on Cobalt based products coming in. Use the money to rescue to slave families from their captors. Use force if necessary. Freedom from slavery everywhere.
I highly doubt these companies are directly hiring or managing Cobalt miners. You might as well also sue anybody who uses a computer. This is purely a publicity stunt; it will get thrown out immediately.
No, I can't. Just like sorting my trash won't save any fish/birds/whatever and riding my bike won't slow down the melting of the ice caps. The carbon footprint of my entire country is almost exactly 1/100th of the last company on the "top 100 polluters" list[1].
10 million people are just as powerless as one, if all they do is buy a different phone or whatever. But 10 million people voting for the politicians that will impose sanctions on these companies is going to make a difference. People are willing to buy canvas bags and electric cars, but taking the time to find a party that's willing to hold companies accountable and voting for them is just too much work. Don't "vote with your wallet" - it doesn't work. Vote with your VOTE!
Actually the battery in those phones is lithium cobalt oxide. Whether or not they claim that it is ethically sourced won't matter with cobalt.
I'm not sure if you noticed but these are warlords running their country. They simply get resold to an ethically compromised supply chain, relabelled, and sold for a premium. And no one is really accountable and none the wiser. Metals fraud is a huge global problem. Also, happens in every industry.
That being said, the Fairphone looks really cool seems less wasteful than the competitors.
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.
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?
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.
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?
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.
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.
I feel like this is essentially trying to sue capitalism. Of course most raw materials people get is essentially sourced from exploitation. That's just the result of buying for the cheapest cost.
People don't like seeing how the sausage gets made, like the John Oliver segment on children making clothes, if they shut this down it will just pop up again with another company...
If legal precedents start getting made that you have to stop using a vendor once it's exposed that they're using unethical labor practices like this, perhaps even with punitive damages for not doing due diligence yourself, it gets harder and harder every time.
I'm no fan of unenforceable laws that just push problems further out of sight, but I don't think that's the case here.
If those premises are true, it seems like the only choices available are to accept just about any level of brutality and exploitation as inevitable, or to oppose capitalism.
Most capitalists fear public relations and won't use child or slave labor anywhere in their supply chain if they can help it. When the customer might boycott you for something you stand to lose far more than gain by doing it anyway.
Congo produces 2/3rds of the worlds Cobalt. It really doesn't matter if Apple, Microsoft, Dell, Tesla and Google admit they used child labour.... They have.
Instead of levelling skepticism at the lawsuit, why not level skepticism at the companies with a collective market cap of ~$2 trillion? Doesn't that seem more constructive?
There's a real failure of imagination in these comments. Working conditions can and have been improved by advocacy. Saying child labour is an inevitable outcome of capitalism is the same argument that was made by slave owners in the south and Industrialists in Britain at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. You're wrong.
30% of 2016's cobalt consumption is 34800 tonnes. Most cobalt is used in alloys[0], and it is mathematically impossible that each of five companies uses more than a third of the supply in any case.
In other words, it's quite possible that any, or even all, of those companies don't use DRC cobalt. I'll grant you that it's unlikely, particularly in Tesla's case, given how many batteries they produce.
fennecfoxen|6 years ago
But I'm not at all certain the court is willing consider the purchase of goods on the world market to be equivalent to "participation" in this venture, even if the suit asserts that "The Cobalt Supply Chain Is a “Venture”". Is there meaningful precedent for interpreting a supply chain in this way?
AlexTWithBeard|6 years ago
The total spectrum looks like this:
- purposefully: you won't buy cobalt, unless it says "mined by slave children" on the tin
- knowingly: you buy cobalt even if it says "mined by slave children" on the tin
- recklessly: you know that 90% of world cobalt is mined by slave children. You hope that yours comes from the remaining 10%
- negligently: you know that 10% of world cobalt is mined by slave children, so you decided to take a chance and bought yours without checking
shkkmo|6 years ago
The difference is that in this case the children and their families are the actual plaintiffs which presumably changes the legal merits. I still suspect that this case will also be dismissed.
I think the point is that these lawsuits are intended to raise public awareness of the issue which will ideally put pressure the companies being sued to institute voluntary policing of their supply chain. Nestle, for example, has done a lot over the last decade to eliminate child labor in their supply chain.
(Edit) It looks like there is a supreme Court precedent related to the Nestle case that held that child/family plaintiffs did have standing to sue for child labor in the supply chain [2]
[1] https://www.confectionerynews.com/Article/2018/02/13/Nestle-...
[2] https://news.yahoo.com/u-supreme-court-gives-boost-child-sla...
Robotbeat|6 years ago
0) lawyers suing have questionable history
BUT 1) Child labor in Africa is a serious problem that needs to be addressed, and just about anything sourced from Africa will have this problem.
2) The Kamoto mine in question is a copper mine. Cobalt is a secondary product. (One could just about as legitimately call attention to products using copper.)
3) Tesla is targeted in the lawsuit but does not use Congolese cobalt.
4) Possible exception to this is some possible future Tesla cells could come from LGChem which gets some of its lithium from Umicore. However, LGChem is the primary supplier of cells for GM and several other EV producers... Yet they are not named in this lawsuit.
5) Kamoto is a modern industrial mine. Artisanal mines are where child labor is used. Unskilled child labor is of dubious use in highly mechanized industrial mining sites.
6) However, Kamoto has had problems with pirate artisanal mines on its property and has tried to get the Congolese army to help keep them out. (So I guess the lawsuit would be that Kamoto has not been able to keep out illegal artisanal mines from its property?)
7) Regardless of all these points, we NEED to stop this dangerous child labor in Africa, and it's probably a good thing that this sort of thing is drawing attention to the issue.
(Note, I'm mentioning Tesla here because I'm most familiar with it and it's also mentioned most in the thread, but it's possible similar arguments apply to other companies listed: It seems they're listed because they're well-known, large tech companies, not necessarily due to amount of cobalt use or even use of unethical cobalt at all.)
dmix|6 years ago
It's largely just a security problem. But I'm sure the activists don't want violent military guys pushing off the pirate mines.
The other question is the pipelines that purchase from the 'artisanal' mines. Those people could be targeted and better regulated.
But as we've seen in the diamond and gold industries that's been a very hard thing to do in African countries without stable governments or strong incentives to stop them.
If the goal is to actually stop it and not some vindictive pursuit of western companies who people want to take all of the blame, then upping security and oversight of the mines with financial goals and on-sight oversight teams to measure progress. Plus some financial incentives to the various players to reports the dangerous supply lines which are using kids, so it's not putting a poor person between having something and total poverty out for some moral purpose which they will disregard.
lsllc|6 years ago
If the DRC is going to allow (or ignore) child labor for Cobalt mining, then there should be tariffs that would make it so expensive that it would make Australian or Canadian Cobalt mines profitable (where we know the workers are fairly compensated and can work in safe environments).
If India is going to look the other way for poor labor practices in ship breaking then there should be a big tariff on the recycled steel that drives that industry. Making properly managed, safe ship breaking in well regulated countries competitive.
If China wants to allow heavy industrial production with no environmental protections, then there should be tariffs on that to make countries that do regulate industrial pollution competitive.
When these countries finally clean up their labor practices and make things safe and equitable for their workers and the environment, then the tariffs go away.
Companies should NOT be able to exploit repression, bullying unsafe practices, child labor or pollution by proxy etc. in order to reduce their costs by moving production to such a country. Trade tariffs, when wielded honestly and effectively should be a tool to prevent that.
microtherion|6 years ago
Apple has made a lot of progress on environmental and supplier labor issues over the last couple of years. And I'm pretty sure that getting picketed by activists and other pressure tactics played some role in that.
https://www.apple.com/supplier-responsibility/pdf/Apple_SR_2... https://images.apple.com/environment/pdf/Apple_Environmental...
swebs|6 years ago
Eh, I don't think giving more money to the third world mining companies is going to guarantee they're going to stop using child labor. The simplest and least risky decision for the tech companies is to simply stop buying Congolese cobalt. It's "blood diamonds" all over again.
steve-benjamins|6 years ago
Shivetya|6 years ago
ptah|6 years ago
Glencore headquarters is in Switzerland
sjg007|6 years ago
solidasparagus|6 years ago
qaq|6 years ago
bjornjaja|6 years ago
It really is unfortunate. The mining company should build out proper infrastructure but I’m guessing they just delegate to (corrupt) locals.
This is no different than all the global environmental issues we’re facing with large scale production facilities (bottled water, petroleum, etc. are a huge problem too). The indigenous populations are getting fucked over because they live in remote areas prime for exploitation. Then the factories close down and don’t clean anything up.
I should point out this is also happening in developed countries like Canada and the USA. For instance, what is the difference between children mining cobalt and children being exposed to mercury poisoning because their rivers upstream there’s a paper plant dumping toxic waste into the food supply in Ontario, or petrol industry in Texas poisoning neighboring schools with chemical fumes.
papreclip|6 years ago
doubleInt|6 years ago
https://www.glencore.com/media-and-insights/news/Glencore-st...
Robotbeat|6 years ago
Also interesting they included Tesla who has consistently used ethically sourced Cobalt (and others who have campaigned for ethical cobalt have acknowledged this).
I suspect folks commenting here are right that this is a publicity stunt.
EDIT: One good that could come from this publicity stunt, though, is more focus on the legitimate problem of child labor in Africa.
hnburnsy|6 years ago
>Michael uses the example of someone buying roses. A man hundreds of years ago got a lot of Good Place points because he grew and picked his own roses to give to his grandmother. However, when another man got roses for his grandmother, he lost points. It’s because he ordered them through a cell phone that was made in a sweatshop, the flowers were grown with toxic pesticides, delivered from thousands of miles away creating a large carbon footprint and the money went to a greedy CEO that sexually harassed women.
LifeIsBio|6 years ago
_bxg1|6 years ago
dls2016|6 years ago
turc1656|6 years ago
IANAL, but it seems very obvious from both the article and the lawsuit that there is no foundation to this. The article acknowledges this is essentially new ground, but it doesn't even seem to be based on anything legal at all. Looking at the actual complaint (http://iradvocates.org/sites/iradvocates.org/files/stamped%2...) it is very telling that in a 79 page suit barely over 2 pages is related to "jurisdiction and venue". That is a major component of this case, in addition to the totally untested claims being attempted here in this case. Having barely over 2 pages sort of tells you right off the bat that they know this is seriously thin.
Moving to the actual claim, they assert the US court is appropriate based on 18 U.S. Code § 1596. That seems reasonable based on the text. So moving along to the complaints, they claim violations of 18 U.S. Code § 1581, § 1584, § 1589, and § 1590.
1581 and 1584 very clearly and in no uncertain language apply directly to the people employing and controlling the labor itself. This is just a bad faith claim in my opinion and should be tossed out with prejudice.
1589 deals with those who benefit from such activity, which is where we start to see some semblance of sanity from this lawsuit. However, the language clearly indicates that it must be a "venture". This usually means direct agreements, shared ownership, etc. That is not the case in how these tech companies are acquiring these materials so toss that one out as well, unless of course you are prepared to accept that the open market and global supply chain is a venture. Which would then, by logical extension, include anyone and everyone operating on the entirety of the supply chain and market.
1590 reverts back to the same position as 1581 and 1584, dealing directly with those who have direct control over said labor. Again, toss this out with prejudice.
The whole lawsuit is crap as far as I'm concerned. Even a basic reading of the law shows that this suit is trash, regardless of good intentions or not. The only chance in hell they have is somehow convincing the court that Google, Apple, Dell, etc. are all working together in a fiendishly evil "venture" and that they all have direct control over this child labor. Good luck with that.
Honestly, if I were the judge, I'd throw this entire lawsuit in the trash and force the plaintiff(s) to pay the defense fees, if they had requested it via counter-suit.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1581
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1584
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1589
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1590
jcranmer|6 years ago
> (a) Whoever commits an offense against the United States or aids, abets, counsels, commands, induces or procures its commission, is punishable as a principal.
> (b) Whoever willfully causes an act to be done which if directly performed by him or another would be an offense against the United States, is punishable as a principal.
That does give some more leeway to charge people with crimes here, but I don't think it is enough to sustain the claims of 1581 and 1584, since it seems to be meant to be read as "I'm not doing the dirty deed myself, but I'm telling my henchmen to do it."
bluGill|6 years ago
skybrian|6 years ago
Labeling laws are one way to try to make the hidden details of implementation public at the cost of more complex decision-making for consumers. Sometimes large companies can police the supply chain themselves, so that from a consumer perspective, avoiding exploitation becomes part of the brand.
A carbon tax attempts to bundle climate change costs into prices without changing the public API at all. This seems like the most thorough way to make sure every buyer at all levels of the supply chain takes this environmental cost into account in their decision-making, whether they are specifically thinking about it or not.
So it seems the best way to avoid this issue would be for cobalt based on child labor to be unavailable for purchase and a second-best way would be to make sure it's more expensive so that buyers within the supply chain will automatically avoid that dependency.
When we get to the point where consumers need to step in and do the decision-making because nobody else will then this is probably the most inefficient way to do it, but it seems the supply chain won't do it unless they are pushed into it?
baybal2|6 years ago
No cobalt - no lithium batteries, and no mobile gadgets
No tantalum - no high spec capacitors omnipresent in compact power supplies, thus again no high value electronics as such unless you want to put huge electrolytic caps into your smartphone.
LeifCarrotson|6 years ago
For example, compare this ancient LT app note [1] with this modern datasheet [2]. The former recommends 450 uH wirewound inductors (see especially the humorous page 22, which recommends selecting one with an appropriate weight of less than 0.25 pounds) and 1000 uF solid tantalum monster capacitors. The latter recommends a 10 uF 0402 ceramic capacitors and 4.7 uH 0805 chip inductors.
xxs|6 years ago
Most people are willing to close their eyes as the issue is far away from home
krupan|6 years ago
WilliamEdward|6 years ago
Which one is easier?
digitalsushi|6 years ago
My house has 6 computer monitors and I won't even say how many tv sets. I should be completely aware of how much that cost in earth and human but I got to feel smug by recycling the happy color cardboard it was wrapped with.
twodave|6 years ago
zadkey|6 years ago
ponsin|6 years ago
supernova87a|6 years ago
Even if these companies (or we as consumers) were to stop doing business and pull out of these mining industries, the conflict and suffering in such countries would simply move to some other industry. The people and children would be toiling in agriculture, fishing, maybe piracy, or slave trade. And I do not delude myself to think that the supervisors in those industries are much more charitable than in mining.
While fixing the problems of mining should be done, the underlying root causes of kids having to mine cobalt would not disappear. So think more deliberately about whether band-aiding this one symptom will let you wake up with a clear conscience tomorrow.
egdod|6 years ago
Might as well sue the end users too, if that's a viable theory.
WilliamEdward|6 years ago
LatteLazy|6 years ago
sjg007|6 years ago
dade_|6 years ago
Glencore 2018 Annual report: 'the recent appearance of excess levels of uranium in the cobalt hydroxide being produced at Katanga' https://goo.gl/maps/g3VS4pfhS49eduVf8
linuxftw|6 years ago
digitalsushi|6 years ago
nradov|6 years ago
2OEH8eoCRo0|6 years ago
francisofascii|6 years ago
IXxXI|6 years ago
ptah|6 years ago
krupan|6 years ago
gtfratteus|6 years ago
surewhynat|6 years ago
onreact|6 years ago
You can save people's lives by using the Fairphone already. It's free of those.
franga2000|6 years ago
10 million people are just as powerless as one, if all they do is buy a different phone or whatever. But 10 million people voting for the politicians that will impose sanctions on these companies is going to make a difference. People are willing to buy canvas bags and electric cars, but taking the time to find a party that's willing to hold companies accountable and voting for them is just too much work. Don't "vote with your wallet" - it doesn't work. Vote with your VOTE!
[1] Carbon Majors Report, CDP, 2017
surewhynat|6 years ago
I'm not sure if you noticed but these are warlords running their country. They simply get resold to an ethically compromised supply chain, relabelled, and sold for a premium. And no one is really accountable and none the wiser. Metals fraud is a huge global problem. Also, happens in every industry.
That being said, the Fairphone looks really cool seems less wasteful than the competitors.
Robotbeat|6 years ago
celticmusic|6 years ago
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.
solidasparagus|6 years ago
yibg|6 years ago
afarrell|6 years ago
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.
vinniejames|6 years ago
jeffreyrogers|6 years ago
Giornito|6 years ago
pc86|6 years ago
dang|6 years ago
LatteLazy|6 years ago
vorpalhex|6 years ago
unknown|6 years ago
[deleted]
rubbingalcohol|6 years ago
[deleted]
SQueeeeeL|6 years ago
People don't like seeing how the sausage gets made, like the John Oliver segment on children making clothes, if they shut this down it will just pop up again with another company...
steve-benjamins|6 years ago
throwaway_tech|6 years ago
You can't just pop up a new mine like you could a textile factory.
TallGuyShort|6 years ago
I'm no fan of unenforceable laws that just push problems further out of sight, but I don't think that's the case here.
minimuffins|6 years ago
bluGill|6 years ago
steve-benjamins|6 years ago
Instead of levelling skepticism at the lawsuit, why not level skepticism at the companies with a collective market cap of ~$2 trillion? Doesn't that seem more constructive?
There's a real failure of imagination in these comments. Working conditions can and have been improved by advocacy. Saying child labour is an inevitable outcome of capitalism is the same argument that was made by slave owners in the south and Industrialists in Britain at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. You're wrong.
samatman|6 years ago
In other words, it's quite possible that any, or even all, of those companies don't use DRC cobalt. I'll grant you that it's unlikely, particularly in Tesla's case, given how many batteries they produce.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobalt#Applications