Addressing Natural Resource Conflicts: Working towards More Effective Resolution of National and Sub-National Resource Disputes
Publisher: Chatham House
Author(s): Michael Keating and Oli Brown
Date: 2015
Topics: Dispute Resolution/Mediation, Programming
Disputes over natural resources – such as land, fresh water, minerals or fishing rights – are ubiquitous. When resolved peacefully, as is most often the case, such disagreements are an essential part of progress and development.
However, resource disputes can also trigger violence and destruction, particularly in states with weak governance, high levels of corruption, and existing ethnic and political divisions. Bitter disagreements over the distribution of Iraq’s oil wealth among Sunni, Shia and Kurdish regions, for example, have contributed to the fragmentation of that country. In the Darfur region of Sudan, disputes between pastoralist herders and farmers over livestock migration routes and watering holes have become a violent flashpoint for wider cultural, ethnic and religious differences.
Population growth, urbanization, rising consumption, climate change, environmental degradation, and new technologies for the extraction, and processing of resources are changing the patterns of resource supply and demand. This has profound implications for the political economy of resource use – both globally and locally. By the middle of this century, for example, it is predicted that the world’s population will have exceeded 9 billion, global energy use will have doubled, and global water demand will have increased by 55 per cent over 2012.
The international community should approach intervention in national and sub-national resource disputes with caution, and its primary role should be to support the ability of countries to resolve their own conflicts, write Oli Brown and Michael Keating. - See more at: http://www.chathamhouse.org/publication/addressing-natural-resource-conflicts-working-towards-more-effective-resolution-national#sthash.QyvAWKqj.dpuf