Mapping Recent Developments in Transparency of Extractive Industries
Publisher: Business and Human Rights Journal
Author(s): Zorka Milin
Date: 2016
Topics: Extractive Resources, Governance
Secrecy and poor human rights often go hand in hand with each other, especially in developing countries that are rich in natural resources. This is part of the phenomenon known as the “resource curse”—the paradox that many resource-rich countries tend to be even worse off than otherwise similarly situated countries: more impoverished, more unequal, more authoritarian and more conflict-prone.In an effort to alleviate the resource curse, a number of transparency initiatives and laws have emerged in recent years, seeking to ensure that natural resource wealth will benefit the people of resource-rich developing countries, rather than perpetuate corruption, conflict and poverty. This includes a variety of legal mandates and quasi-voluntary commitments to: disclose revenues paid by companies to resource-rich countries; fully disclose terms of natural resource contracts; report on the presence of conflict minerals in corporate supply chains; and make public who benefits from anonymous companies that are involved in natural resource extraction. Covering all of these issues is beyond the scope of this piece. The aim here is to survey and map this landscape, with a particular focus on revenue transparency, and with an eye to outlining the emerging global transparency standard and reflecting on some challenges that lie ahead and the broader significance of natural resource revenue transparency, in particular linkages with human rights issues.