The publication shows that commodity traders operate at many points in the supply chain and are therefore important links for transparency, traceability and the enforcement of standards. So far, however, they do not do justice to this outstanding importance. This is also because they are not obliged to check their supply chain for human rights and environmental risks. If they do not, they share responsibility for human rights violations and environmental degradation in the mining sector.
This fact has so far received too little attention from the media and politics. In the coming years, from a civil society perspective, it must therefore be a matter of making the activities of commodity traders more visible to the public and of advocating for their regulation.
