Peacebuilding and Resource Crimes: White-Collar Criminalization and Associated Human Rights Abuses in Post-War Natural Resources Sectors


Publisher: University of British Columbia - Vancouver

Author(s): Philippe Le Billon

Date: 2017

Topics: Governance, Land

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With increased resource extraction and hybrid forms of governance, postwar situations can present an opportune context for white-collar crime in resource sectors-including corruption, tax evasion, land dispossession, and illegal resource exploitation. Based on four case studies, white-collar crime is frequently legitimated under the guise of reconstruction and economic growth strategies, whereas the victims of corruption and resource grabs become 'criminalised'. Such selective forms of criminalisation reflect a securitisation of resource sectors characterised by repressive forms of resource enclosures and increased socioeconomic inequalities; putting resource-related white-collar crime at the core of negative peace economies.