An advocacy group is taking another crack at Apple in court, again accusing the company of using conflict minerals tied to violence and human rights abuses in Central Africa.
International Rights Advocates (IRAdvocates) has filed a lawsuit against Apple over its use of conflict minerals in its devices. The group alleges that Apple uses minerals connected to human rights abuses and conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Rwanda.
The Washington-based advocacy group is asking the courts to verify that Apple's use of conflict minerals violates consumer protection law. The lawsuit, spotted by Reuters, alleges that three Chinese smelters, Ningxia Orient, JiuJiang JinXin, and Jiujiang Tanbre, processed coltan that was smuggled through Rwanda after armed groups seized mines in Eastern DRC.
Coltan — short for columbite-tantalite — is an ore that yields niobium and tantalum once processed. Both of these minerals are used in Apple devices like iPhone.
According to Apple's 2024 supplier list, the company uses all three smelters.
This isn't the first time that IRAdvocates has gone after Apple, either. In 2019, the group attempted to sue Apple — as well as Tesla, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Dell — over its cobalt sourcing.
That case, however, was dismissed in 2024. The courts ruled that buying cobalt in the global supply chain did not make Apple, or any of the others, complicit in human rights violations.
As noted by Reuters, Circuit Judge Neomi Rao said that without "more specific allegations," the companies had nothing more than a buyer-seller relationship with suppliers. The court did not believe that the companies had the power to stop the use of child labor.
It's not yet clear how the new argument differs. Coltan and other similar materials are tracked from mining, through purification, and all the way to the component supplier.
A history of conflict, both in and out of the courtrooms
Conflict minerals are an unfortunate result of the growth of the consumer electronics industry. The minerals in question are tin, tungsten, tantalum, and gold, and are collectively referred to as 3TG.
Tin is used in resistors, solder, batteries, and more. Tantalum is commonly alloyed, and is a major component in chip manufacture.
Tungsten is another common element used across the entire electronics industry. Gold, known for being resistant to corrosion, has its place in printed circut boards, camera modules, and internal connectors.
3TG minerals are often mined from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a region that has seen increased mining-related violence. Forced labor and child labor are also frequently used in mining operations.
There are no substitutions for conflict minerals — only alternate sourcing. This is why it is critical that the tech industry use sources that do not rely on slave labor, or through channels that perpetuate conflicts in areas like the DRC.
Apple assures consumers — and its shareholders — that it takes the matter seriously. It releases a yearly conflict mineral report and lists the suppliers it works with.
In 2020, Apple reported that it cut ties with 18 suppliers found to be sourcing conflict minerals. Then, in 2022, it stopped working with another twelve.
However, in recent years, Apple has been accused of knowingly using Congolese-sourced minerals linked to forced labor and violent crime. If true, the argument could be made that Apple is complicit in these war crimes and therefore should be held accountable.
