The European Parliament will vote on a draft...EU...regulation to address the trade in conflict minerals on...20 May...The current draft regulation only scratches the surface...In its bias towards industry interests, it fails to address the security and development needs of miners themselves...Standards for self-certification have been available since 2010, but companies simply do not check their supply chains unless they are required to. A voluntary European scheme would be well below the legal standard already in place in a number of African countries, as well as the United States...[T]he issue has been reframed as one of clean supply chains as a goal in itself...[S]olutions to political conflict require more than clean supply chains... A truly comprehensive approach to responsible mining would be grounded in the realities of affected mining communities...This requires EU diplomats to be much more stringent in demands on local policy-makers to tackle chronic poverty, unemployment and instability...