A/HRC/42/CRP.3 has documented how this has led to incentives for both Tatmadaw and EAOs in contested areas to profit from direct resource extraction.236 The Mission has also reviewed research on how they have entered into commercial joint ventures, formal and informal taxation arrangements and money-laundering.237 The media and investigative organizations have also implicated private companies in these arrangements, appropriating or exploiting natural resources by collaborating with or upon the authorization of an EAO. 238 All of these are areas of concern that require further investigation. 3. Legal findings on jade and ruby mining in Kachin and Shan States 100. The Mission concludes on reasonable grounds that the Tatmadaw’s business and military interests in the jade and ruby extractive industries benefited from and directly contributed to international human rights violations in conflict-affected areas in Kachin State. The Mission has a similar concern with respect to Shan State due to the existence of hostilities in that state. The Tatmadaw has used forced labour to increase mining revenue and has used mining areas as staging grounds for abductions, forced labour, sexual violence and murder. The perpetration of these serious violations suggests that civilians, in particular women, living and working in mining areas are at a particularly heighted risk of experiencing sexual violence by the Tatmadaw. Many of the human rights violations the Mission documented are also violations of international humanitarian law and some rise to the level of war crimes, due to their association with non-international armed conflict. 101. The Mission also finds specifically that hostilities around Hpakant and Tanai Townships in Kachin State are inextricably linked to the natural resource economy in these areas. The Mission has documented numerous accounts of fighting taking place at or around mining areas, with the apparent objective of the parties to the conflict obtaining control over the resources or destroying their adversary’s economy.239 102. The interdependent relationship between the Tatmadaw, the mining industry, and violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law in various mining areas leads the Mission to conclude on reasonable grounds that Myanmar has failed to apply the content of the Guiding Principles effectively. Myanmar specifically failed in its obligation to respect and ensure respect for international human rights and international humanitarian law through the unlawful acts of the Tatmadaw and by not effectively regulating the mining industry and preventing and mitigating the risks to human life to which their activities contribute. 103. The Mission also found reasonable grounds to conclude that any extractive industry business seeking to do business or doing business in Kachin and Shan States should fulfil their responsibility to respect human rights by not contracting with Tatmadaw-related businesses (including their subsidiaries) directly or indirectly – i.e. they should not source from or have Tatmadaw-related businesses in their supply chain, given the involvement of the Tatmadaw in natural resource extraction and its responsibility for violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law in mining areas. 240 Doing so could expose them to criminal and civil liability. 104. In addition, any businesses seeking to or doing business in these areas should conduct heightened due diligence to ensure it is not otherwise causing, contributing to or directly 236 237 238 239 240 36 QI-080; PI-061; SI-004. Kevin Woods, “Ceasefire Capitalism: Military-private partnerships, resource concessions, and military-state building in the Burma-China borderlands”, Journal of Peasant Studies, 28, no. 4 (2011): 747-70; Kevin M. Woods, “The Conflict Resource Economy and Pathways to Peace in Burma,” USIP, November 2018. Global Witness, “Jade: Myanmar’s Big State Secret,” 23 October 2015; ” Myanmar's tin-mining hub,” Reuters; Yimou Lee and Joel Schectman, “For Apple and others, tin supply chain has ties to rebel-held Myanmar mine,” Reuters, 28 November 2016 (https://www.reuters.com/article/usmyanmar-tin-insight/for-apple-and-others-tin-supply-chain-has-ties-to-rebel-held-myanmar-mineidUSKBN13N1VV) SI-004, PI-043, PI-049, PI-054. See above sections on Responsible business policies and practices and Business officials and criminal liability.