# Laura Seay Political scientist at Colby College, blogging as *Texas in Africa*, and the author of the paper that put the phrase **"de facto embargo"** into the conflict-minerals debate. **Center for Global Development Working Paper 284, January 2012** — *"What's Wrong with Dodd-Frank 1502? Conflict Minerals, Civilian Livelihoods, and the Unintended Consequences of Western Advocacy"* — argued that [[Dodd-Frank Section 1502]] produced a boycott the statute never mandated, because risk-averse buyers stopped sourcing from the whole region rather than doing the due diligence. Her figures: **1–2 million Congolese artisanal miners** affected, 5–12 million people including dependents, and roughly a **90% collapse in North Kivu tin exports** after a major smelter exited. The paper also attacked the Enough Project for pivoting to consumer-electronics messaging in 2009 without consulting Congolese stakeholders. Her recommendations were not repeal: phased implementation with benchmarks, humanitarian assistance to mining communities, traceability schemes that create jobs, formal Congolese leadership in implementation, and treating security-sector reform as the actual problem. > [!warning] Frequently miscited > Seay's paper, and the Stoop/Verpoorten/van der Windt PLOS ONE study, are sometimes listed as evidence that Section 1502 *worked*. They are the leading papers on the other side. The genuinely supportive quantitative literature is a different set — Baik et al. (2024) and the IPIS/UCLA matched study of 104 mine sites. > > The methodological counter-attack on her side is also worth knowing: a 2018 *Resources Policy* paper argues the embargo narrative rests on weak and repeatedly recycled evidence. And in 2017, **111 Congolese and Great Lakes organisations wrote to the SEC opposing suspension** of the rule — Congolese civil society is not univocal on this, in either direction. ## See also [[Dodd-Frank Section 1502]] · [[Séverine Autesserre]] · [[Conflict Minerals Supply Chain]] · [[Conflict Minerals Hub]]