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Tech giants sued over deaths of children who mine cobalt

252 points by asaibx 7y ago

onreact 7y ago
It's about time tech giants take responsibility for the blood minerals they use. You can save people's lives by using the Fairphone already. It's free of those.
- franga2000 7y ago
  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! [1] Carbon Majors Report, CDP, 2017
  - franga2000 7y ago
    Hopefully that didn't come across as aggressive against Fairphone or your comment. I like Fairphone and might actually buy their phone next cycle. This is just a topic that really matters to me, as I've witnessed what happens when someone goes down the environmental responsibility rabbit hole to the point of not being able to properly function because of feeling guilty about basically every part of modern society. Making sacrifices to make up for other people's wrongdoing is never a good mentality. You shouldn't give away your money to people who got robbed. But you should definitely stop voting for the party that made robbery legal.
    - onreact 7y ago
      You don't have to feel guilty, just make informed choices. Just giving up and taking deaths for granted is cynical. For example I went vegan and I feel much better now. I'm saving the planet while at it without "making sacrifices". Also handing over responsibility to politicians does not work. As long as people keep on trashing the planet politicians don't care. Political parties are only catering to mainstream choices. Thus you need to start a trend that one day will force politicians to act.
      - franga2000 7y ago
        See, I'm not giving up on anything here. If I went vegan - hell, if my entire country went vegan, not a single cow in the entire world would live in better conditions. Same with emissions, etc. We're a rounding error. But we have some very good politicians. If I (and enough other people) vote them into our and later the EU parliament, they will in turn vote for things like sanctioning companies for shit that goes down in their supply chain, regulating animal treatment, etc. And that might actually make a difference. People are way too cynical about politics. Changing your life is great, but it's not what will ultimately decide the outcome of this mess. Politics is where the power lies and if a person in power does not agree with you, no amount of protesting/lifestyle changes is going to make them change their minds. Politicians are not your enemy - bad politicians are. So vote those out and vote the good ones in.
- surewhynat 7y ago
  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.
- Robotbeat 7y ago
  Tesla, who uses just ethically sourced cobalt, is also a target of this lawsuit for some reason. So that won't save you from lawsuits like this.
gtfratteus 7y ago
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.
- surewhynat 7y ago
  You're telling me with 100 billion dollars in the bank you don't fully understand your supply chain and make an informed decision?
  - Nasrudith 7y ago
    They understand it on an abstracted layer because that is all that is needed for the operation and is relevant. They may know Company a provides X of Y for Z but every reference is effectively a blackbox. Informed and omniscent aren't synonymous.
baybal2 7y ago
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.
- xxs 7y ago
  yeah - agree... and look at the tools industry where most hand-held tools are battery powered nowadays (incl. angle grinders) Most people are willing to close their eyes as the issue is far away from home
- LeifCarrotson 7y ago
  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.
swebs 7y ago
>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.
- steve-benjamins 7y ago
  I think the assumption is that ethical suppliers would be more expensive and that these companies have the margins to pay more.
  - gwbas1c 7y ago
    > You see, two-thirds of the global supply of cobalt comes from the Congo. So already, right there, you cannot avoid Congolese cobalt.
    - pnako 7y ago
      You could ban/sanction Congolese cobalt; this would increase prices in the short run, while other producing countries adjust supply.
      - soared 7y ago
        Adjusting the supply of cobalt in a country isn't something thats easily adjusted.
        pnako 7y ago
        Why not? If half of the supply disappears overnight, prices will go through the roof, providing an incentive for current producers to increase output, by increasing effort in their existing mining operations, and more than likely by opening new operations.
SQueeeeeL 7y ago
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...
- bluGill 7y ago
  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.
  - Klinky 7y ago
    This assumes perfect information for the consumer. Most capitalist wouldn't advertise they use child labor even if they did. Sweep it under the rug, and focus on the marketing budget instead. Then many consumers are apathetic to a lot of things, they may not care enough that some children they never knew died. Relying on the invisible hand to affect social change often results in invisible results, because the results don't actually exist.
    - bluGill 7y ago
      In the case of child/slave labor the topic is sensitive enough that it isn't worth sweeping under the rug because the risk is too great. If you do "sweep it under the rug" a large part of your efforts is ensuring the children working for you have a better life than those not (education and medical care) which costs a lot of money. That is you assume you will be caught and try to present yourself in the best light anyway.
      - Klinky 7y ago
        The risk is too great? What risk exactly? The risk of becoming a trillion dollar company? Does every iPhone, Galaxy Android device or new laptop have a sticker on them that says "Product may have used child labor at some point in supply chain" in big bold letters? Will these companies triumphantly announce how their product now results in only 1 child death per year instead of 2 at some big keynote product launch event? No. Maybe they'll investigate after being called out and put it in some report that barely any consumers care to read. If you sampled 100 smartphone users on the street about cobalt procurement practices, would they be surprised by what they hear? If you tracked those 100 people, how many would change their behavior(i.e. give up their smartphone) after hearing about it?
bluGill 7y ago
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.
fennecfoxen 7y ago
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?
- shkkmo 7y ago
  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] [1] https://www.confectionerynews.com/Article/2018/02/13/Nestle-sued-again-over-child-labor-in-cocoa-supply-chain https://www.confectionerynews.com/Article/2018/02/13/Nestle-... [2] https://news.yahoo.com/u-supreme-court-gives-boost-child-slave-labor-055122768--finance.html https://news.yahoo.com/u-supreme-court-gives-boost-child-sla...
  - DSingularity 7y ago
ptah 7y ago
I will be avoiding buying new Lion battery products for foreseeable future
- krupan 7y ago
  Only used ones? I'm serious here. How? How are you going to live in today's world and keep that promise?
  - ptah 7y ago
    I will figure it out.
qaq 7y ago
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.
- bjornjaja 7y ago
  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.
  - qaq 7y ago
    This is not a mishap Glencore is tied to so much corruption (ties to every dictator imaginable)and despicable practices across the globe.
  - sjg007 7y ago
    The mining company will only respond to supply and demand.
  - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
    But I mean, you see what’s wrong here right? The lawyers thought about it from the angle of who’s actually responsible, but realized that suing that company probably wouldn’t accomplish much lasting change. So they made up reasons to also sue popular tech companies, in hopes that embarrassing them will help serve the lawyers’ goals. That’s not how the process is supposed to work.
steve-benjamins 7y ago
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.
- samatman 7y ago
  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. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobalt#Applications https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobalt#Applications
celticmusic 7y ago
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.
- 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).
zadkey 7y ago
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?
twodave 7y ago
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.
skybrian 7y ago
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?
egdod 7y ago
> 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.
- WilliamEdward 7y ago
  sue millions of consumers or one company... seems like a hard choice.
  - egdod 7y ago
    My point is that I am dubious about this legal theory.
  - Nasrudith 7y ago
    Or sue nobody because of a lack of actual grounds for a lawsuit.
krupan 7y ago
Do we all feel better blaming the tech companies for this than blaming ourselves, the customers of the tech companies?
- WilliamEdward 7y ago
  Uh, yes? You can force millions of consumers to stop buying things or a single company to stop producing them. Which one is easier?
  - krupan 7y ago
    I mean, it's not just one company, is it? But it is less than than millions, so your point probably still stands. Forcing anyone to do anything is pretty hard though. The U.S. government can lean on U.S. companies, but will that really save the child miners? Will they all suddenly not be forced into this type of labor if the U.S. companies stop using their services? Those kids will suddenly all be enrolled in school and grow up to be business owners, doctors, nurses, engineers, all using cell phones powered by some much more ethically obtained energy storage device? I must be feeling down today. Sorry about that.
    - WilliamEdward 7y ago
      No worries... i don't think forcing companies to stop buying will help the child labourers, but i do think it's the least we can do in the west. Troubling times we live in.
    - overthemoon 7y ago
      I feel the same when I think about how bleak this all is, but this could be one part of a multipart solution. No, it's not going to magically fix everything wrong with the global economy. But we have to think about things like corporate responsibility and legal consequences for companies that use this material. I suppose I bear some responsibility for not fully researching the mineral sources of each piece of electronics I buy, but the simple act of meeting consumer demand is not morally neutral. Putting legal pressure on companies to not use material mined by children could be helpful (with the usual caveat wrt the devil & details.)
Robotbeat 7y ago
Interesting they don't sue diesel producers, consumers, or makers of diesel vehicles. One of the largest uses of cobalt is desulphurisation of diesel: https://www.cobaltinstitute.org/desulphurisation.html https://www.cobaltinstitute.org/desulphurisation.html 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.
sjg007 7y ago
Maybe tax the crap out of newly mined/imported coltan and institute a robust elecronics recycling program.
linuxftw 7y ago
Ban all trade with countries that use child labor and forced labor, simple as that.
- digitalsushi 7y ago
  I think if we keep peeling back the veneer on this, every country is going to have something illegitimate on that front.
  - linuxftw 7y ago
    I agree. In the US, we should start domestically. Prisoners earn minimum wage, prisoners do not owe restitution to the state.
- nradov 7y ago
  The US uses child labor. I had a regular part time job at age 15.
dade_ 7y ago
G Corp 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 https://goo.gl/maps/g3VS4pfhS49eduVf8
Robotbeat 7y ago
I found this is very insightful thread on this lawsuit and context behind it: https://mobile.twitter.com/enn_nafnlaus/status/1206896495993278464 https://mobile.twitter.com/enn_nafnlaus/status/1206896495993... 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 7y ago
  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.
LatteLazy 7y ago
Fair is fair: if tech giants are culpable, so is anyone with a smart phone. We must all cast the first stone at ourselves.
turc1656 7y ago
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%20-Complaint.pdf 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/18/1581 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1584 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/18/1589 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1590 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1590
supernova87a 7y ago
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.
hnburnsy 7y ago
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.
- dls2016 7y ago
  In other words, there’s no such thing as ethical consumption.
  - homonculus1 7y ago
    What is the point of this slogan? Are we all supposed to feel guilty for not reverting to disconnected hunter-gatherer tribes? It's not an insightful ethical standard, and I reject it.
    - dls2016 7y ago
      Like a sibling of my original comment, human morality is optimized for small tribes. In my opinion the point of the slogan is to instill some anarchy into the listener... some weariness of top-heavy hierarchies. In my experience, it seems that the existence of a top-heavy hierarchy is necessary for, and too often sufficient to ensure, widespread exploitation. It's relatively easy for one desperate person to rob their neighbor. But a hierarchy will allow you to convince normal people to participate in the robbing of everyone two towns over, or in protecting a powerful studio executive, or dehumanizing detainees, or...
- LifeIsBio 7y ago
  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.
ponsin 7y ago
Using that logic they might as well sue every American who buys products with Cobalt because they "force" tech companies to provide them with it.
francisofascii 7y ago
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.
2OEH8eoCRo0 7y ago
Why do countries allow their workers to be abused?
IXxXI 7y ago
Only american tech is being sued.

252 points by asaibx 7y ago

It's about time tech giants take responsibility for the blood minerals they use. You can save people's lives by using the Fairphone already. It's free of those.

franga2000 7y ago
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! [1] Carbon Majors Report, CDP, 2017
- franga2000 7y ago
  Hopefully that didn't come across as aggressive against Fairphone or your comment. I like Fairphone and might actually buy their phone next cycle. This is just a topic that really matters to me, as I've witnessed what happens when someone goes down the environmental responsibility rabbit hole to the point of not being able to properly function because of feeling guilty about basically every part of modern society. Making sacrifices to make up for other people's wrongdoing is never a good mentality. You shouldn't give away your money to people who got robbed. But you should definitely stop voting for the party that made robbery legal.
  - onreact 7y ago
    You don't have to feel guilty, just make informed choices. Just giving up and taking deaths for granted is cynical. For example I went vegan and I feel much better now. I'm saving the planet while at it without "making sacrifices". Also handing over responsibility to politicians does not work. As long as people keep on trashing the planet politicians don't care. Political parties are only catering to mainstream choices. Thus you need to start a trend that one day will force politicians to act.
    - franga2000 7y ago
      See, I'm not giving up on anything here. If I went vegan - hell, if my entire country went vegan, not a single cow in the entire world would live in better conditions. Same with emissions, etc. We're a rounding error. But we have some very good politicians. If I (and enough other people) vote them into our and later the EU parliament, they will in turn vote for things like sanctioning companies for shit that goes down in their supply chain, regulating animal treatment, etc. And that might actually make a difference. People are way too cynical about politics. Changing your life is great, but it's not what will ultimately decide the outcome of this mess. Politics is where the power lies and if a person in power does not agree with you, no amount of protesting/lifestyle changes is going to make them change their minds. Politicians are not your enemy - bad politicians are. So vote those out and vote the good ones in.
surewhynat 7y ago
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.
Robotbeat 7y ago
Tesla, who uses just ethically sourced cobalt, is also a target of this lawsuit for some reason. So that won't save you from lawsuits like this.

gtfratteus 7y ago

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.

surewhynat 7y ago
You're telling me with 100 billion dollars in the bank you don't fully understand your supply chain and make an informed decision?
- Nasrudith 7y ago
  They understand it on an abstracted layer because that is all that is needed for the operation and is relevant. They may know Company a provides X of Y for Z but every reference is effectively a blackbox. Informed and omniscent aren't synonymous.

baybal2 7y ago

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.

xxs 7y ago
yeah - agree... and look at the tools industry where most hand-held tools are battery powered nowadays (incl. angle grinders) Most people are willing to close their eyes as the issue is far away from home
LeifCarrotson 7y ago
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.

swebs 7y ago

>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.

steve-benjamins 7y ago
I think the assumption is that ethical suppliers would be more expensive and that these companies have the margins to pay more.
- gwbas1c 7y ago
  > You see, two-thirds of the global supply of cobalt comes from the Congo. So already, right there, you cannot avoid Congolese cobalt.
  - pnako 7y ago
    You could ban/sanction Congolese cobalt; this would increase prices in the short run, while other producing countries adjust supply.
    - soared 7y ago
      Adjusting the supply of cobalt in a country isn't something thats easily adjusted.
      - pnako 7y ago
        Why not? If half of the supply disappears overnight, prices will go through the roof, providing an incentive for current producers to increase output, by increasing effort in their existing mining operations, and more than likely by opening new operations.

SQueeeeeL 7y ago

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...

bluGill 7y ago
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.
- Klinky 7y ago
  This assumes perfect information for the consumer. Most capitalist wouldn't advertise they use child labor even if they did. Sweep it under the rug, and focus on the marketing budget instead. Then many consumers are apathetic to a lot of things, they may not care enough that some children they never knew died. Relying on the invisible hand to affect social change often results in invisible results, because the results don't actually exist.
  - bluGill 7y ago
    In the case of child/slave labor the topic is sensitive enough that it isn't worth sweeping under the rug because the risk is too great. If you do "sweep it under the rug" a large part of your efforts is ensuring the children working for you have a better life than those not (education and medical care) which costs a lot of money. That is you assume you will be caught and try to present yourself in the best light anyway.
    - Klinky 7y ago
      The risk is too great? What risk exactly? The risk of becoming a trillion dollar company? Does every iPhone, Galaxy Android device or new laptop have a sticker on them that says "Product may have used child labor at some point in supply chain" in big bold letters? Will these companies triumphantly announce how their product now results in only 1 child death per year instead of 2 at some big keynote product launch event? No. Maybe they'll investigate after being called out and put it in some report that barely any consumers care to read. If you sampled 100 smartphone users on the street about cobalt procurement practices, would they be surprised by what they hear? If you tracked those 100 people, how many would change their behavior(i.e. give up their smartphone) after hearing about it?

bluGill 7y ago

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.

fennecfoxen 7y ago

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?

shkkmo 7y ago
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] [1] https://www.confectionerynews.com/Article/2018/02/13/Nestle-sued-again-over-child-labor-in-cocoa-supply-chain https://www.confectionerynews.com/Article/2018/02/13/Nestle-... [2] https://news.yahoo.com/u-supreme-court-gives-boost-child-slave-labor-055122768--finance.html https://news.yahoo.com/u-supreme-court-gives-boost-child-sla...
- DSingularity 7y ago

ptah 7y ago

I will be avoiding buying new Lion battery products for foreseeable future

krupan 7y ago
Only used ones? I'm serious here. How? How are you going to live in today's world and keep that promise?
- ptah 7y ago
  I will figure it out.

qaq 7y ago

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.

bjornjaja 7y ago
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.
- qaq 7y ago
  This is not a mishap Glencore is tied to so much corruption (ties to every dictator imaginable)and despicable practices across the globe.
- sjg007 7y ago
  The mining company will only respond to supply and demand.
- SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
  But I mean, you see what’s wrong here right? The lawyers thought about it from the angle of who’s actually responsible, but realized that suing that company probably wouldn’t accomplish much lasting change. So they made up reasons to also sue popular tech companies, in hopes that embarrassing them will help serve the lawyers’ goals. That’s not how the process is supposed to work.

steve-benjamins 7y ago

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.

samatman 7y ago
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. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobalt#Applications https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobalt#Applications

celticmusic 7y ago

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.

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).

zadkey 7y ago

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?

twodave 7y ago

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.

skybrian 7y ago

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?

egdod 7y ago

> 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.

WilliamEdward 7y ago
sue millions of consumers or one company... seems like a hard choice.
- egdod 7y ago
  My point is that I am dubious about this legal theory.
- Nasrudith 7y ago
  Or sue nobody because of a lack of actual grounds for a lawsuit.

krupan 7y ago

Do we all feel better blaming the tech companies for this than blaming ourselves, the customers of the tech companies?

WilliamEdward 7y ago
Uh, yes? You can force millions of consumers to stop buying things or a single company to stop producing them. Which one is easier?
- krupan 7y ago
  I mean, it's not just one company, is it? But it is less than than millions, so your point probably still stands. Forcing anyone to do anything is pretty hard though. The U.S. government can lean on U.S. companies, but will that really save the child miners? Will they all suddenly not be forced into this type of labor if the U.S. companies stop using their services? Those kids will suddenly all be enrolled in school and grow up to be business owners, doctors, nurses, engineers, all using cell phones powered by some much more ethically obtained energy storage device? I must be feeling down today. Sorry about that.
  - WilliamEdward 7y ago
    No worries... i don't think forcing companies to stop buying will help the child labourers, but i do think it's the least we can do in the west. Troubling times we live in.
  - overthemoon 7y ago
    I feel the same when I think about how bleak this all is, but this could be one part of a multipart solution. No, it's not going to magically fix everything wrong with the global economy. But we have to think about things like corporate responsibility and legal consequences for companies that use this material. I suppose I bear some responsibility for not fully researching the mineral sources of each piece of electronics I buy, but the simple act of meeting consumer demand is not morally neutral. Putting legal pressure on companies to not use material mined by children could be helpful (with the usual caveat wrt the devil & details.)

Robotbeat 7y ago

Interesting they don't sue diesel producers, consumers, or makers of diesel vehicles. One of the largest uses of cobalt is desulphurisation of diesel: https://www.cobaltinstitute.org/desulphurisation.html https://www.cobaltinstitute.org/desulphurisation.html 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.

sjg007 7y ago

Maybe tax the crap out of newly mined/imported coltan and institute a robust elecronics recycling program.

linuxftw 7y ago

Ban all trade with countries that use child labor and forced labor, simple as that.

digitalsushi 7y ago
I think if we keep peeling back the veneer on this, every country is going to have something illegitimate on that front.
- linuxftw 7y ago
  I agree. In the US, we should start domestically. Prisoners earn minimum wage, prisoners do not owe restitution to the state.
nradov 7y ago
The US uses child labor. I had a regular part time job at age 15.

dade_ 7y ago

G Corp 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 https://goo.gl/maps/g3VS4pfhS49eduVf8

Robotbeat 7y ago

I found this is very insightful thread on this lawsuit and context behind it: https://mobile.twitter.com/enn_nafnlaus/status/1206896495993278464 https://mobile.twitter.com/enn_nafnlaus/status/1206896495993... 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 7y ago
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.

LatteLazy 7y ago

Fair is fair: if tech giants are culpable, so is anyone with a smart phone. We must all cast the first stone at ourselves.

turc1656 7y ago

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%20-Complaint.pdf 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/18/1581 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1584 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/18/1589 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1590 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1590

supernova87a 7y ago

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.

hnburnsy 7y ago

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.

dls2016 7y ago
In other words, there’s no such thing as ethical consumption.
- homonculus1 7y ago
  What is the point of this slogan? Are we all supposed to feel guilty for not reverting to disconnected hunter-gatherer tribes? It's not an insightful ethical standard, and I reject it.
  - dls2016 7y ago
    Like a sibling of my original comment, human morality is optimized for small tribes. In my opinion the point of the slogan is to instill some anarchy into the listener... some weariness of top-heavy hierarchies. In my experience, it seems that the existence of a top-heavy hierarchy is necessary for, and too often sufficient to ensure, widespread exploitation. It's relatively easy for one desperate person to rob their neighbor. But a hierarchy will allow you to convince normal people to participate in the robbing of everyone two towns over, or in protecting a powerful studio executive, or dehumanizing detainees, or...
LifeIsBio 7y ago
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.

ponsin 7y ago

Using that logic they might as well sue every American who buys products with Cobalt because they "force" tech companies to provide them with it.

francisofascii 7y ago

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.

2OEH8eoCRo0 7y ago

Why do countries allow their workers to be abused?

IXxXI 7y ago

Only american tech is being sued.