Impact of Global Governance of Extractive Resources on Ethiopian Extractive Resource Policy and Legal Framework

Abstract

Ethiopia has policies and laws meant to govern the extractive resources and industries. The policies and laws in place share a cohesion compared with the fragile global governance system dominated by bilateral and multilateral treaty arrangements and voluntary standards. A closer scrutiny of the existing legal and policy regime reveal the influence the global forces of the world have on their content as well as structure. Natural resources being of high importance to economic development and the associated political tension raised in benefit sharing, call for a governance regime that responds both to the domestic demands as well as international competition. The continued influence of global actors and globalization on the domestic policy and legal space specifically manifested by liberal thoughts of ‘transparency in resource governance’ can act as a barrier to the resource gain threshold or as a God send in battling resource curse. This paper argues that Ethiopian EIs policy and legal regime is influenced and will continue to be influenced by the global governance structure and there is a need for a contextual approach and further study on governance of extractive industries as a way to escape the fears of globalization while guaranteeing its benefits.