Resource Sovereignty Research Articles

Popular sovereignty over natural resources: A critical reappraisal of Leif Wenar’sBlood Oilfrom the perspective of international law and justice

Abstract:The article discusses the concept of popular sovereignty over natural resources and its possible applicability to a broader account of natural resource justice based on a moral interpretation of international law. Leif Wenar’s recent proposal to entrench popular resource sovereignty as a counterclaim to illegitimate uses of natural resources by corrupt and authoritarian regimes serves as the starting point for the discussion of the possible meaning of popular resource sovereignty and its role in an account of natural resource justice. Three key aspects of Wenar’s conception are in focus: 1) the framing of popular resource sovereignty within the current system of sovereign territoriality, 2) the notion of collective ownership of natural resources as the content of popular resource sovereignty, and 3) civil and political rights as the key set of norms determining the conditions of legitimate exercise of resource sovereignty. The article argues that collective sovereignty claims over natural resources can neither be framed exclusively through boundaries of current sovereign states, nor understood in terms of full and unlimited property rights. Concerning civil and political rights, I argue we need to move past the liberal conception of legitimacy toward a more comprehensive human rights-based conception of justice serving as a standard for assessment of legitimacy of both sovereign and non-sovereign entities which have rights over natural resources.

Natural resource sovereignty and economic development in the WTO in light of the recent case law involving raw materials and rare earths

The principle of permanent sovereignty over natural resources (PSNR) has been fundamental for developing nations to realize their political and economic independence. Increasingly, the principle of PSNR has been subjected to pressures, which limit the rights granted to States over their natural resources. Principles such as ‘common concern of humankind’ and ‘sustainable development’ are adding new goals and limitations to PSNR. The World Trade Organization (WTO) has brought the principle of PSNR into the WTO system for the first time through recent case law. This article explores the way in which the principle of PSNR has been adapted to the multilateral trading system, arguing that this treatment imposes limitations on States’ actions regarding their economic development. The article also suggests how the WTO should develop its treatment of PSNR, bearing in mind the historical calling for PSNR to further economic development.

The Borders Beneath: On Pipelines and Resource Sovereignty

The very phrase “modern Middle East” conjures images of military conflict, terrorism, sectarianism, and oil, yet most observers tend to separate the history of Western oil consumption from Middle Eastern wars or dismiss the whole business as wars for oil. This essay argues that the claims staked by Western oil companies to the entire subterranean sphere involved a configuration of sovereignty in which the states in question were alienated from the resources of value. This hollow form of sovereignty had corollaries on the territorial level where oil companies promoted sectarianism and its militarization. On this count, I modify Timothy Mitchell's thesis in Carbon Democracy that the militarization of the Middle East was a largely American solution to lost profits following the nationalization of oil by producing countries (insofar as lost oil profits were recuperated through weapons sales), arguing instead that militarization was a strategy simultaneous with the development of oil concessions. Subsequent nationalization of the concessions involved the absorption of ethnic competition and militarized space into the very fabric of the nation-state. In the current embattled context, a nascent form of resource sovereignty operates in Iraqi Kurdistan where the Kurdistan Regional Government funds the Peshmerga with proceeds from its independent oil sales. Although a successful, long-term outcome of resource sovereignty depends on the dissolution of another colonial holdover, namely, claims based on ethnicity, the Kurdish restructuring of oil ownership marks the first step in dissolving the enduring legacies of colonial administration, authoritarian governments, and systematic militarization.

Water Resources and CETA: A Blueprint for Developing a Discipline for International Trade in Natural Resources

The commercialisation (or not) of water resources is of strategic importance for nations and peoples. The recognition of access to water as a human right is now an established debate. Economic and population growth, as well as environmental changes, will only increase the importance of water as a natural resource. Considerations regarding ownership and development of water resources have been incorporated into the recent Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between Canada and the EU. CETA marks the first time that issues of access, ownership, and commercialisation of water resources are expressly tackled by an international trade agreement. This paper explores how CETA deals with the issue of water as a natural resource within international economic law, paying special attention to the problem of determining exactly when a natural resource becomes a ‘good’ or a ‘product’ for the purposes of trade. The paper also comments on how CETA’s treatment of water resources interacts with the concept of Permanent Sovereignty Over Natural Resources (PSNR). Finally, this paper will examine whether the water resource provision in CETA could be used as a blueprint for developing a discipline of international trade on natural resources. Natural resource sovereignty continues to be a concern for developing nations. They see their natural wealth as a key instrument in achieving the three ‘pillars’ of sustainable development, i.e. economic and social development, and environmental protection. The relevance of this paper lies in exploring new ways for future international trade and investment agreements to integrate these three ‘pillars’ of sustainable development. In doing so, this could set the foundations for developing a discipline for international trade in natural resources.

A vote to derail extraction: popular consultation and resource sovereignty in Tolima, Colombia

In July 2013, a consulta popular (referendum) was organised by municipal authorities in Tolima, Colombia, to judge public opinion on the establishment of activities by an international mining conglomerate ie the Colosa (the Giant) gold mine. In this article study is made of the referendum, and emphasis given to its linkages with wider regional, national and Latin American efforts to anticipate damage and derail projects for resource extraction. Recognising the techniques and networks, and similar expressions of identity and territoriality, expressed in other campaigns against extraction, resource sovereignty is suggested as an approach to interpret the motivations for and dynamics of recent popular consultations.

Who controls the territory and the resources? Free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) as a contested human rights practice in Bolivia

The article scrutinises the struggles over prior consultation and free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) and analyses the divergent interpretations of what this right would entail in Bolivia. Similar contestations have played an important role in resource conflicts across Latin America. Using rich empirical data, the article discusses (1) disputes over legal norms regulating this participatory right, (2) related claims to territorial control and resource sovereignty, and (3) consultation participants’ constrained influence. In doing so, it focuses on the Guaraní’s diverse attempts to shape consultation processes and their outcomes according to their own ends and shows how many of these initiatives have been curtailed.

Canadian mining in Latin America (1990 to present): a provisional history

Since the early 1990s Canadian mining companies extended their presence in Latin America in unprecedented numbers and ways. This article presents a historical synthesis of this phenomenon. It shows Canadian overseas mining as predominantly focused on exploration and precious metal mining; traces its origins in the nexus between new techniques and hubs of speculative capital; and shows the political innovations produced by this commodity frontier, both in the deployment of new forms of corporate governmentality and in the emergence of locally-based movements for resource sovereignty and socio-ecological justice.

Resource Sovereignties inBolivia: Re‐Conceptualising the Relationship between Indigenous Identities and the Environment during theTIPNISConflict

This paper examines the active re‐construction of indigenous identities within thePlurinationalState ofBolivia through the case study of a resource conflict that arose with the government's announcement of its intention to build a road through a national park and indigenous territory, theTerritorioIndígena yParqueNacionalIsiboroSécure (TIPNIS;IndigenousTerritory andIsiboroSécureNationalPark). Ethnographic fieldwork shows thatboththe stateandthe lowland indigenous movement have fashioned essentialised understandings of an indigenous identity linked to the environment in order to legitimise competing resource sovereignty claims.

Extracting sovereignty: Capital, territory, and gold mining in Tanzania

In contemporary discussions of “resource nationalism,” sovereignty is often imagined as the exclusive control of national states over internal resources in opposition to external foreign capital. In this paper, we seek to draw attention to the specifically national territorial forms of sovereignty that – rather than hindering the flow of capital – become constitutive to the accumulation of resource wealth by states and capital alike. Drawing from political geographical theorizations of sovereignty, we argue that resource sovereignty cannot be territorially circumscribed within national space and institutionally circumscribed within the state apparatus. Rather, sovereignty must be understood in relational terms to take into account the global geography of non-state actors that shape access to and control over natural resources. Specifically, we engage national-scale state sovereignty over subterranean mineral resources in the form of legal property regimes and examine the mutually constitutive set of interdependencies between mining capital and landlord states in the accumulation of resource wealth. Using Tanzania as a case study, we argue that national-scale ownership of subterranean mineral resources has been critical to attracting global flows of mining capital from colonial to contemporary times. We first examine the history of the colonial state in Tanganyika to illustrate how land and mineral rights were adjudicated through the power of the colonial state with the hopes of attracting foreign capital investment in the mining sector. We then examine contemporary efforts on the part of the independent United Republic of Tanzania to again enact legislation meant to attract foreign mining companies – and the consequences for local populations living near sites of extraction.

Oil ‘futures’: Shell’s Scenarios and the social constitution of the global oil market

This article explores the relationship between the oil industry’s representation of operating conditions in key sites of extraction and the constitution of oil futures markets. An analysis of Shell Oil’s recent Scenarios publications, the ‘Trilemma Scenarios to 2025’ and subsequent ‘Scramble and Blueprints Scenarios to 2050’, provides insight into both the (global) social construction of oil prices and the oil industry’s reaction to social resistance in its operating environment – whether in the form of movements for resource sovereignty or climate change activism. Examining the implications of these two Scenario publications for key sites of Shell investment, the Nigerian Niger Delta and the Canadian Tar Sands, the article demonstrates that understanding the discursive implications of ‘peak oil’ for the petroleum industry requires contextualizing discussions of ‘scarcity’ within business agents role in shaping oil futures markets, and private industry’s interest in the ongoing development of unconventional fossil fuel sources. While the role of deregulated futures trading receives little attention in the Shell Scenarios, speculative trading – and thus perception concerning supply among business agents – is central to shaping global oil prices and thus the social conditions of the oil market.

Spaces of Water Governance: The Case of Israel and Its Neighbors

This article examines the scale dynamics of water governance. Five generic scales are identified, each associated with a particular ideology and discourse. Hence, scale dynamics are hypothesized to oscillate as a function not only of power and economic factors (although these are central) but as reflections of shifts in dominant ideologies and shifts in sanctioned discourses. The dynamics are examined in the intra-Israeli and the Israeli–Arab cases. In the intra-Israeli case the scale dynamics largely conform with the hypothesis. Once the national level is exceeded, however, the different story lines associated with the generic scales are used only to legitimize negotiating positions, and the actual regime scale is a compromise among physical features, power factors, and sovereignty considerations. The difference in dynamics between the intranational and international levels is explained by the need of international regimes to address the discrepancy between resource domains and sovereignty rights domains, rather than the discrepancy with property rights domains at the intrastate level.

The Oil Curtain and the Evolution of National Oil Companies

Management Sketch out the global landscape of reserves and production and its most salient features would be the growing appetite for oil and gas and the drive for reserves replacement from frontiers and mature fields. In the background lie the cycles of "feast or famine" and the long lead times that govern investment and returns. Tantalizingly hidden away is the essence of the industry—petroleum reserves. The Oil Curtain neatly symbolizes resource sovereignty and separates the hydrocarbon "haves" from the "have nots." It has led to the major part of proved global oil reserves being booked by national or state oil companies (NOCs). To illustrate the change of ownership, in 1971 NOCs held 30% of total global reserves while international oil companies (IOCs) held 70%. Today NOCs have increased their share to 93% while IOCs hold 7%. What caused such a dramatic reversal in fortune? Since the early 1900s the importance of oil in financial, political, and strategic matters has been bubbling up to the surface. Eventually, this led to a pressing need for producing states to control oil. Mexico was first to "shut" the oil curtain by nationalizing its oil assets and forming the wholly state-owned Pemex (Petróleos Mexicanos) in 1938. By 1960, resource sovereignty had fully matured into a global force and the Central Bank of Oil—the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)—was created. OPEC's central message was clear: oil was too important to leave in the hands of foreigners. It would seek to regulate "oil rents" and end arbitrary payments from foreign oil companies. OPEC's thinking was shaped threefold. First, deals favored foreign oil companies and foreign governments, not producing states. Foreign oil companies also controlled an outward flow of profits, which were often the greater part of producing countries’ gross domestic product. Generally, beneficiaries were foreign governments either directly through shareholder dividends or indirectly through taxes. Secondly, foreigners took vital political decisions affecting the sovereignty of producing countries. Oil production, foreign exchange earnings through oil sales, and ultimately, national debt were being dictated by foreign oil companies. Lastly, the military and naval campaigns of the Second World War combined with the utility of oil in general transportation left no doubt that oil was a primary strategic asset.

“The people's oil”

This article examines similarities and differences in the development of the oil industries of Brazil, Mexico, and Venezuela through an analysis of the struggles and alliances between their elites, political classes, and diverse popular forces. The analysis demonstrates that although history has produced popular skepticism over the meaning of the state's claim that “our oil belongs to the people,” a popular imaginary of the potential link between national resource sovereignty and social justice has had powerful historical effects. Despite the structural differences between these cases, it remains today at the center of emergent alternatives that cannot be dismissed simply as a return to the populism of the past. While its main significance in Mexico to date has been to impede persistent efforts to privatize the industry, in the cases of Venezuela and Brazil we may now talk of significant possibilities for building a more multipolar world economic order.

Doing It for Themselves

Colonial processes of territorial acquisition and state formation have constituted a continuous assault on the political and cultural autonomy of the indigenous peoples of the New World. In recent decades, indigenous claims for land justice and resource sovereignty have posed considerable legal and political challenges for postsettler states. Planning offers an indispensable conceptual and operational lens through which to examine state responses to indigenous claims. The authors use case studies to explore the utility, contribution, and key features of planning undertaken as a means of resolving resource conflicts, enhancing indigenous capacity to regain and manage custodial lands, and developing community autonomy.

International Resource Conflict and Mitigation

Resource availability is frequently linked with historic and potential international conflict. Conventional wisdom holds that international resource conflict occurs in locations where growing resource demand and declining supplies are greatest. While relative scarcity is undoubtedly an element driving international resource dispute, a focus on supply and demand measures alone is insufficient to understand international conflict potential, because of the pervasive willingness of nations to construct regimes, structures, and frameworks – that is, institutions – for dispute mitigation. However, institutions for regulating the use of internationally scarce resources sometimes fail to develop, and when they do, they are not always sufficiently resilient to deal with changing political and resource environments. Thus, international resource conflict is most likely to occur where there exist both resource scarcity and insufficient institutional capacity to deal with it. In particular, conflict is most likely to emerge in those areas where (1) resource sovereignty is ill defined or non-existent, (2) existing institutional regimes are destroyed by political change, and/or (3) rapid changes in resource environments outpace the capacity of institutions to deal with the change. A mitigation strategy for potential international resource conflict is the construction of resilient resource management institutions, along with the improvement of existing institutions. To be most effective, these institutions should be clear in terms of resource allocation and quality control; be constructed with an intrinsic ability to adjust to changing political and environmental conditions; promote positive-sum solutions to resource problems; and incorporate structured conflict resolution mechanisms.