Natural Resources and Conflict Termination

1. Natural Resourcesand Conflict Termination Philippe Le Billon Department of Geography and Liu Institute for Global Issues University of British Columbia Presented at the conference Different resources, different conflicts? Universidad de los Andes, Bogota 24 April 2009

2. Outline • Resources and armed conflicts • Linkages, objectives, approaches, instruments • Resources and armed conflict duration • Do resources prolong conflicts, how? • Are resource-focused instruments effective? • Do resource types matter?

3. Resources and conflicts: linkages

4. Causal mechanisms Resource curse • Poor taxation/representation (government fiscally autonomous from population) • Authoritarianism and corruption • Weak tax handle (resource sectors hard to tax due to the ease of illegal activities and poor bureaucratic control capacity) • Low socio-professional diversification, social cohesion, and regional integration • High income inequality • High economic vulnerability to growth collapse Resource conflict • Grievances over socio-cultural-environmental ‘externalities’ • Grievances over unfair revenue distribution • ‘Economic violence’ by domestic groups • Greater rewards for state capture and secessionism • High (future) profits • Strategic leverage on competitors through resource supply control Conflict resource • Higher viability of armed hostilities (esp. resources financing the weaker party) (Ross 2004, Snyder 2005, Humphreys 2005, Le Billon 2007)

5. Colombian resource cases

6. Resources and conflicts: objectives • Avoiding the resource curse • Preventing or resolving resource conflicts • Tackling conflict resources and transforming resource-based war economies

7. Resources and conflicts: approaches • Consolidate institutions • Democratize resource control • Regulate corporate conduct and trade flows • Avoid conflict-prone investments in risky contexts • Increase and ‘smooth’ resource rents • Diversify economies to reduce dependence • Alleviate poverty in production areas • Address environmental impacts

8. Resource and conflicts: instruments • Power sharing negotiations (Lomé Agreement) • Military interventions (EO, MONUC) • Sanction regimes (UNSC) • Certification regimes (KPCS) • Economic supervision (GEMAP) • Advocacy (Global Witness) • Judicial instruments (ICC) • Resource laws (oil in Chad) • Transparency (EITI) • Legality (FLEGT) • Capacity building (IDMP) • Corporate conduct (Voluntary Guidelines) • Aid and investment conditionality (Norway)

9. Resources and conflict duration: studies

10. Resources and conflict duration: mechanisms • Finance related • Funding available for weaker party • Profitable stalemate and/or victory prize • Poor discipline within armed group (fragmentation) • Commitment by leadership and incentives for splinter • Reduced leverage by external parties • Resource related • Resource issue not addressed (too complex, not necessary for conflict episode termination) • Resource enclave (lack of linkages) • International stakes (resource access)

11. Resources and conflict termination: approaches

12. Ending resource-related armed conflicts • Incentive: wealth-sharing • Root cause? => land-reforms • Buying peace? => lucrative ministerial portfolio • Disincentive: curtailing resource access • Production => Military interventions • Trade => Sanction regimes and certification

13. Do resource types matter? • Political economy • Livelihood impacts • Mode of exploitation • Lootability • Legality • Identity/territoriality • Context

14. Empirical testing

15. Findings

16. Le Billon and Nicholls (2007): resource type

17. Discussion • Medium and large N-studies do not capture specificities • Risk of spurious association, missing variables and false claims • Yet, select instruments for specific resources