Conflict resources are natural resource

Natural resource

Natural resources occur naturally within environments that exist relatively undisturbed by mankind, in a natural form. A natural resource is often characterized by amounts of biodiversity and geodiversity existent in various ecosystems....

s extracted in a conflict zone and sold to perpetuate the fighting. There is both anecdotal and statistical evidence that belligerent accessibility to precious commodities can prolong conflicts (a "resource curse").

History

The concept of 'conflict resource', or 'conflict commodity

Commodity

In economics, a commodity is the generic term for any marketable item produced to satisfy wants or needs. Economic commodities comprise goods and services....

' emerged in the late 1990s, initially in relation to 'conflict diamonds' financing rebellions in Angola and Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone , officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Guinea to the north and east, Liberia to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west and southwest. Sierra Leone covers a total area of and has an estimated population between 5.4 and 6.4...

. (The media often called these 'blood diamonds'.) Then 'conflict timber' financed hostilities in Cambodia and Liberia

Liberia

Liberia , officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Sierra Leone on the west, Guinea on the north and Côte d'Ivoire on the east. Liberia's coastline is composed of mostly mangrove forests while the more sparsely populated inland consists of forests that open...

.

Conventions

The concept was first officially discussed by the UN General Assembly for 'conflict diamonds':. The UN Security Council has since referred to conflict resources in several resolutions.

The advocacy group Global Witness

Global Witness

Global Witness is an international NGO established in 1993 that works to break the links between natural resource exploitation, conflict, poverty, corruption, and human rights abuses worldwide. The organisation has offices in London and Washington, D.C.. Global Witness states that it does not have...

 has called for an international definition facilitating a more systematic application of UN resolutions, the prevention of complicity in abuses during hostilities by commercial entities exploiting or trading in conflict resources, and the prosecution of war profiteers suspected of supporting or abetting war criminals.http://www.humansecuritybulletin.info/page434.htm.
Since 1996 the Bonn International Center for Conversion

Bonn International Center for Conversion

The Bonn International Center for Conversion , established in 1994, is a research institute located in Bonn, Germany. While the focus of BICC's work initially centered around the conversion of military facilities and equipment to civilian uses , the institute's research has expanded to other areas...

 has tracked resource governance and conflict intensity by country. Aside from fossil fuel

Fossil fuel

Fossil fuels are fuels formed by natural processes such as anaerobic decomposition of buried dead organisms. The age of the organisms and their resulting fossil fuels is typically millions of years, and sometimes exceeds 650 million years...

s, metals, diamonds, and timber it tracks the governance

Governance

Governance is the act of governing. It relates to decisions that define expectations, grant power, or verify performance. It consists of either a separate process or part of management or leadership processes...

 of other primary goods

Raw material

A raw material or feedstock is the basic material from which a product is manufactured or made, frequently used with an extended meaning. For example, the term is used to denote material that came from nature and is in an unprocessed or minimally processed state. Latex, iron ore, logs, and crude...

 that might fund conflicts, including: poppy seed

Poppy seed

Poppy seed is an oilseed obtained from the opium poppy . The tiny kidney-shaped seeds have been harvested from dried seed pods by various civilizations for thousands of years...

s (Afghanistan), rubber

Rubber

Natural rubber, also called India rubber or caoutchouc, is an elastomer that was originally derived from latex, a milky colloid produced by some plants. The plants would be ‘tapped’, that is, an incision made into the bark of the tree and the sticky, milk colored latex sap collected and refined...

 (Côte d'Ivoire), cotton

Cotton

Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. The botanical purpose of cotton fiber is to aid in seed dispersal....

 (Zambia), and cocoa (Indonesia).

Congo's conflict resources

As of 2010, the conflict resource fueling the world's deadliest war is gold

Gold

Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...

 in the Congo. Gold bar

Gold bar

A gold bar is a quantity of refined metallic gold of any shape that is made by a bar producer meeting standard conditions of manufacture, labeling, and record keeping....

s are less traceable than diamonds, and gold is abundant in the Kivu conflict

Kivu conflict

The Kivu conflict is an armed conflict between the military of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Hutu Power group Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda . The United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo also became involved in the conflict...

 region. In any case, no jewellery

Jewellery

Jewellery or jewelry is a form of personal adornment, such as brooches, rings, necklaces, earrings, and bracelets.With some exceptions, such as medical alert bracelets or military dog tags, jewellery normally differs from other items of personal adornment in that it has no other purpose than to...

 industry standard exists for verifying gold origination, as it does for diamonds (though jeweler's total outlay on gold is five times that on diamonds). Other conflict minerals

Conflict minerals

Conflict minerals are minerals mined in conditions of armed conflict and human rights abuses, notably in the eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, by the Congolese National Army and various armed rebel groups, including the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda...

 being illicitly exported from the Congo include cobalt

Cobalt

Cobalt is a chemical element with symbol Co and atomic number 27. It is found naturally only in chemically combined form. The free element, produced by reductive smelting, is a hard, lustrous, silver-gray metal....

, tungsten, cassiterite

Cassiterite

Cassiterite is a tin oxide mineral, SnO2. It is generally opaque, but it is translucent in thin crystals. Its luster and multiple crystal faces produce a desirable gem...

, and coltan

Coltan

Coltan is the industrial name for columbite–tantalite, a dull black metallic mineral from which the elements niobium and tantalum are extracted. The niobium-dominant mineral is columbite, hence the "col" half of the term...

 (which provides the tantalum

Tantalum

Tantalum is a chemical element with the symbol Ta and atomic number 73. Previously known as tantalium, the name comes from Tantalus, a character in Greek mythology. Tantalum is a rare, hard, blue-gray, lustrous transition metal that is highly corrosion resistant. It is part of the refractory...

for mobile phones, and is also said to be directly sustaining the conflict.)