Bickham, Edward2025-10-212017-11Bickham, Edward. “The Conflict-Free Gold Standard: Building an Industry Coalition to Address the Challenges of Conflict Gold.” Corporate Responsibility Initiative Report No. 75. Cambridge, MA: John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, November 2017.https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/42720461This case study describes why and how the World Gold Council led the development of the Conflict-Free Gold Standard (the Standard) from 2010 to the end of 2012. The Standard provides a common, voluntary approach through which gold mining companies can undertake due diligence and provide assurance to stakeholders, based on compliance with accepted international benchmarks, that their gold has been extracted in a manner that does not cause, support or benefit unlawful armed conflict or contribute to serious human rights abuses or breaches of international humanitarian law.Technical Report