By Lisa Navarrette, ICC Fellow In the age of electric vehicles, smartphones, and artificial intelligence, the modern world runs on minerals. Among the most valuable is coltan — short for columbite-tantalite — a dull black ore that produces tantalum, a heat-resistant metal vital for modern electronics. Tantalum capacitors store and regulate energy in everything from smartphones and laptops to missiles and electric vehicles (EVs). Without it, circuits would overheat, and batteries would fail. Thus, coltan has become an invisible backbone of the global economy. Yet, beneath its technological brilliance lies a human tragedy.