The term "conflict minerals" is used to describe metal ores that, when mined, sold, or traded, are widely reported to play key roles in fueling armed conflict and human rights abuses in several far eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC, formerly Zaire). The main minerals at issue are columbite-tantalite (coltan, a source of tantalum and niobium), cassiterite (tin ore), wolframite (tungsten ore), and gold—and their derivatives. The first three minerals are dubbed the 3Ts. When gold is also considered, they are known as the 3TGs. Links between conflict, human rights abuses, and the mining of and trade in these minerals have been the subject of numerous investigations, research studies, and policy papers, as well as policy advocacy campaigns focused on a need to respond to the persistence of conflict and its large toll in lives and human rights abuses. Such efforts have prompted policy makers, industry groups, and others, both in the United States and abroad, to craft measures aimed at cutting links between the minerals trade and those involved in or abetting armed conflict in eastern DRC. Continuing political instability in Congo has been the focus of congressional attention since the overthrow in 1997 of the regime of Mobutu Sese Seko, who had led DRC (known during his rule as Zaire) since 1965. Multiple congressional hearings have investigated various aspects of the DRC's conflicts, and multiple resolutions and bills have been introduced to help end them or mitigate their effects. Several have become law. The most extensive U.S. law aimed at halting the trade in conflict minerals, specifically the 3TGs, is Section 1502 of Title XV of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act ( P.L. 111-203 ). It is the subject of an ongoing Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rule-making process that is expected to lead to adoption of "final" Section 1502 implementing rules. This process, which has faced delays, is discussed further below. These congressional efforts have dovetailed with executive branch activities aimed at curtailing conflict in DRC, especially in the east. For nearly two decades, State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) officials have monitored the dynamics of instability in eastern DRC and the surrounding sub-region, including linkages between conflict, human rights abuses, and minerals. They have also implemented multiple humanitarian and technical aid, policy-focused, and public-private partnership programs to break such links, in some cases as mandated by Congress. Multiple international public and private initiatives have sought to accomplish similar goals. The United Nations (U.N.) Security Council (UNSC) has, for instance, imposed DRC-focused sanctions aimed, in part, at curtailing the conflict minerals trade. It has also mandated that the U.N. peacekeeping mission in the DRC help the national government to achieve that end. Donor governments have also supported initiatives by states and intergovernmental entities in central Africa to design and implement transparent, accountable, and conflict-free national and regional mineral purchasing and trade certification regimes. Other donor-backed mining sector reform efforts also seek to reduce links between mining and conflict and boost legitimate trade. Industry groups are also piloting several similar certification schemes in central Africa that seek to verifiably track supply chains of minerals sourced in the region to ensure that buying and trade activities do not fund armed actors or otherwise abet conflict. These schemes are designed to complement government certification efforts in the region (see Appendix B ) and in some cases are an inherent part of these efforts. A key component of most of these public and private sector efforts is a process of due diligence that was developed by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) with input from a broad array of stakeholders. The areas in eastern DRC that have been negatively affected most persistently by conflict lie in the border regions adjacent to Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi, and include the provinces of North and South Kivu (known jointly as the Kivus). Armed groups and illegal mineral sector actors also operate in the district of Ituri, just north of the Kivus, the locale of an ethnically and resource-focused conflict in the mid-2000s. It has been relatively quiescent in recent years. More than a decade and a half of conflict has also resulted in a breakdown of law and order and caused socioeconomic devastation for many in eastern DRC, an area which had already suffered decades of state neglect and depredation under Mobutu's rule. Conflicts in eastern DRC have spawned a large number of armed militias, motivated by a mix of political aims and communal or ethnic self-defense, criminal, and other goals. Multiple, often inter-related factors have underpinned these conflicts, which have consistently been characterized by numerous, extreme human rights abuses. Such factors have included inter-ethnic political and economic competition, in some instances associated with the 1994 Rwandan genocide or Congolese state and societal discrimination against ethnic minorities. Diverse political grievances against and competition for control over the state have also played a role. Integration of various non-state armed groups into the national military and other military reform processes; lack of military training and discipline; and contested command and control and corruption within the military are also contributing factors. Widespread poverty and unequal patterns of resource distribution have also helped spur and prolong conflict, as have criminal opportunism, pillage, and predation of civilian populations, often by elements of state security forces. Such catalysts of conflict have not only motivated Congolese armed actors' actions; they also spurred several foreign state military interventions in Congo in the early 2000s. For more on the dynamics of conflict in eastern DR and actors involved, see Appendix A . These drivers of conflict have been aggravated by competition and conflict over various resources, including land rights; tropical timber and agricultural commodities, such as coffee, palm oil, and charcoal; illicit drug cultivation and trade; and fishing rights—but more notably over mineral reserves, mining, and trade. Ores that have been the focus of such dynamics have earned the moniker "conflict minerals" because they are found in all of the provinces of eastern DRC that have experienced lengthy periods of war and insecurity, and have often provided an incentive for acts of coercion and armed clashes; are mined under very poor, often dangerous labor conditions due to the use of manual modes of production and human rights abuses by armed groups, including state security force elements, who often directly or indirectly coercively control mining operations; provide armed groups profit derived from direct participation in, control of, or extortion from mineral mining and commerce; and underpin an extensive black-market cross-border trade that is proscribed under UNSC sanctions pertaining to the DRC and which benefits armed groups, among other actors, many illicit, such as black market traders and smugglers. The main conflict minerals at issue are the 3TGs and their derivatives, which Section 1502 explicitly and formally defines as "conflict minerals." The reason that these minerals have both played such a prominent role in conflict in the sub-region and drawn extensive international attention is that they help supply a high-value, global commodities trade that provides crucial inputs to a wide variety of industries and manufacturers. They include: Columbite-tantalite , a composite mineral ore known in Central Africa as coltan. Columbite is the ore of columbium, also known as niobium. Tantalite is the source of the metal tantalum. Tantalum is a highly malleable and corrosion-resistant metal conductor of heat and electricity. It is a key component in electronics goods, especially capacitors (devices that store and regulate, or buffer, electrical charges) used in cell phones and auto electronics, computers, digital cameras, and other electronics. It is also used to create carbide alloys in hard metals for use in cutting tools, jet parts, and other applications. In the early 2000s, after a spike in tantalum prices, production and sales of coltan in the eastern DRC rose sharply—prompting increased concern over conflict minerals, as armed groups became involved in the trade—but later dropped as global prices decreased. Niobium is also highly malleable and heat resistant, and is used in alloys for jet and rocket engines, medical and optical technology, electronics, jewelry, and other applications. The DRC is a marginal source of niobium, supplying well under an estimated 1% of world supplies between 2006 and 2010, but it is a significant, though highly variable global source of tantalite. During the same period, its estimated share of world tantalite supplies rose from 1.6% to 20.5%, and it supplied an annual average of 11.4% of the global supply. Cassiterite (tin oxide) is the main ore source of tin, a highly corrosion-resistant metal often used in solders, tin plating, chemicals, and alloys, notably bronze. Often found co-located with coltan in the DRC, tin is increasingly being used in electric circuits. Laws requiring a phase-out of lead in such applications in Europe and Japan reportedly contributed to a spike in tin prices in 2007 and 2008. Asian industrial growth has also contributed to a gradual increase in demand for tin. Cassiterite is widely seen as the most important ore from eastern DRC, which has contributed between 2% and 5% of global supplies in recent years. Wolframite is the ore of tungsten.