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31. Going Against the Tide: Towards Binding Environmental Regulation of Mining in Chile

Author:
Johanna Jarvela and Lotta Aho
Publication Date:
04-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Business and Development Studies (CBDS), Copenhagen Business School
Abstract:
Mining industry is one of the only industries not subjected to any international environmental agreement. Thus, only national laws, Corporate Social Responsibility, industry standards, and other forms of self-regulation govern the mining industry. However, there are increasing concerns about the sustainability and social responsibility of this business. In Chile, neoliberal policies were implemented to a great extent during ϭϵϳϬ’s and ϴϬ’s and the legacy of these policies was an almost absent environmental regulation until 2010. This makes Chile an interesting case to investigate the workings and consequences of voluntary environmental regulation based on neoliberal paradigm. Whereas multinational corporations largely influence the current development of environmental regulation, and hence it is increasingly based on voluntary measures and industry guidelines, the socio-environmental conflicts have forced Chile to go against the current and move from soft law towards binding regulation. A situation where a country needs to move from non-regulation or fully privatized regulation back towards hard law and command and control has been less investigated than deregulation and different forms of capitalist influence on governance. We wish to address this gap in literature with this study. Based on our findings, we argue that following neoliberal theory in environmental regulation leads to increasing socio-environmental conflicts.
Topic:
Environment, Regulation, Neoliberalism, Mining, and Industry
Political Geography:
South America and Chile

32. Chinese companies in Arctic mining are gaming the master plan

Author:
Patrik Andersson, Per Kalvig, and Urik Pram Gad
Publication Date:
05-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)
Abstract:
Looking for Chinese state ownership in Arctic extractive projects misses the point, and politically framed rhetoric from Chinese companies may be misleading. Some Western companies downplay their Chinese relations, but Western companies are often reliant on Chinese partners. In Western media, Chinese companies are sometimes discussed as being parts of a well-oiled state machine. They are not, but neither are they left to fight on their own without any support or guidance. Rather, they follow their own business priorities while eagerly seizing opportunities provided through supportive state policy. Interaction and integration with the state varies between different types of companies. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has a complex set of levers which make it possible to secure specific strategic investments. The likelihood of state intervention varies depending on the commodity involved as well as geopolitical factors. However, the preferred mode of governance is to issue general policies that encourage companies to contribute to state objectives.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Business, Global Political Economy, and Mining
Political Geography:
China, Asia, and Arctic

33. CCP Inc. in West Africa: How Chinese Party-State Actors Secured Critical Minerals in Guinea

Author:
Briana Boland, Lauren Maranto, and Jude Blanchette
Publication Date:
06-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
Abstract:
This CCP Inc. case study explores how Chinese diplomatic, regulatory, financial, and commercial actors work in concert to secure critical minerals in the West African nation of Guinea. Efforts in Guinea to mine bauxite and iron ore, the primary inputs for aluminum and steel, illuminate Beijing’s conduits for influencing and supporting its geo-economic objectives. Examining one key Chinese player in Guinea’s mining sector, this study highlights state actors’ connections with nominally private Chinese companies and the importance of partnerships with state-owned enterprises for building costly infrastructure. Across multiple bauxite and iron ore mining ventures, Chinese diplomatic support and state financing provided conduits to help further favored projects and increase Chinese companies’ access to Guinea’s mining industries.
Topic:
International Cooperation, Natural Resources, Hegemony, Mining, and Superpower
Political Geography:
Africa, China, Asia, and Guinea

34. The state and the ‘legalization’ of illicit financial flows: Trading gold in Bolivia

Author:
Fritz Brugger, Joschka Proksik, and Felitas Fischer
Publication Date:
12-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Most research on illicit financial flows (IFFs) has focused on illicit outflows from developing countries and the role of non-state actors in generating IFFs. Less attention has been paid to processes and interfaces through which IFFs enter formal value chains—in effect being ‘legalized’ before leaving the country—or the crucial role of state institutions as gatekeepers. We develop a novel explanatory approach to account for the enabling role of state institutions in the ‘legalization’ of IFFs. Building on political settlement theory, we explain the performance of institutions in the regulation of IFFs as a function of political settlements. Taking the case of the Bolivian gold-trading sector, we examine how the process of ‘legalizing’ illicit value flows works in practice and analyse the motives and underlying conditions that lead state institutions to permit the formal export of gold shipments that have been illicitly sourced or transferred. Evidence from Bolivia indicates that the ‘legalization’ of illicit flows cannot be sufficiently explained by reference to corruption, illicit rent-seeking, or a general lack of administrative capacity. Rather, the process accommodates the interests of the cooperatives dominating the gold-mining sector, which are critical to maintaining the political settlement on which the incumbent government’s power is based. By maintaining a status quo of non-enforcement, legal ambiguity, and pervasive informality, gold-mining cooperatives are permitted to reap higher benefits from resource extraction at the expense of domestic revenue mobilization.
Topic:
Institutions, Mining, Trade, Value Chains, Illicit Financial Flows, and Gold
Political Geography:
Global Focus

35. Chinese Mining Companies and Local Mobilization in Myanmar

Author:
Xue Gong
Publication Date:
01-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
Since the 2010s, China has invested enormous amounts of capital in major infrastructure construction projects in developing countries around the world, including in Southeast Asia. Many argue that China aims to export its development model to the world, but Chinese actors have also at times sought to address project concerns at least to some degree. The question is this: how are Chinese business actors adapting to the local contexts, legal and regulatory requirements, technical standards, and community norms in the places where they operate? To answer that question, it is important to focus on the interactive dynamics between Chinese players and local civic actors (such as local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), faith-based organizations, community groups, government-owned NGOs, activists, associations, and other networks in exile) in Myanmar that can collectively be termed local societal actors. By tracing Chinese local engagement activities involving a major Chinese-backed resource-extraction project, the Letpadaung copper mine, this paper argues that the past few decades of China’s deep embeddedness and interests in Myanmar’s political economy forced Chinese businesses to adapt to Myanmarese societal demands, by way of a local community-based approach. Beijing knows that projects supported by Myanmar’s government today might not have the same traction tomorrow. Therefore, when pressure has built, Chinese actors have paid greater heed to demands from local residents in projects’ host countries, even at times integrating these demands to adjust existing Chinese strategies, choices, and behaviors. That said, these concessions have not caused these disputes to entirely disappear, and the staying power of these Chinese adaptations is open to question, particularly amid the political upheaval Myanmar has weathered since the 2021 coup. A key variable in these changes is the power of the local societal actors: when they are strong and supported by local institutions, Chinese business actors often are more adaptive to local demands and take greater steps, including with local partners, to win support from local societal actors. Because the interactions between local institutions and local societal actors vary by place and time, Chinese responses to local actors and practices also do vary in different periods. In sum, it is clear that Chinese actors are making progress at the local level by showing their adaptability not just in terms of the Letpadaung copper mine case but also on other shared development projects in Myanmar. Nonetheless, Chinese actors’ approach to local community engagement is subject to the local context and specifically to what extent local institutions have the capacity and will to support local societal demands.
Topic:
Civil Society, Infrastructure, Institutions, Coup, and Mining
Political Geography:
China, Southeast Asia, and Myanmar

36. PLUS Politics: Tackling the EIA Impact Gap

Author:
Columbia Centre on Sustainable Investment
Publication Date:
02-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment
Abstract:
Oil, gas, and mining projects can be profoundly disruptive to lives and livelihoods and damaging to air, water, soil, and vegetation. Evidence of this abounds across the world, from the Niger Delta and the Gulf of Mexico to Brumadinho, Brazil, and Porgera, Papua New Guinea. Understanding and addressing the social and environmental repercussions of EI development projects is crucial for avoiding or effectively managing such negative outcomes and fostering sustainable development. To date, environmental impact assessment (EIA) processes have been the cornerstone of efforts to identify and address social and environmental impacts of proposed development projects, including extractive industry projects and associated infrastructure. In practice, however, crucial aspects of these processes — the production of EIAs, consultations around the findings and implications of reports, and the actual use of the content of reports to inform key project decisions — are at times considerably distorted by power and incentive dynamics rooted in the political economy of a given context. The result is too often watered-down “box-ticking” exercises in which the impact of the EIA process on actual social and environmental protection can be greatly reduced. Technocratic approaches that emphasize best practices and capacity will not improve the performance of EIA processes on their own. Politically savvy approaches are needed to address the political challenges associated with EIAs, as even the most technically sound and capacitated EIA processes can be derailed by political factors. This brief is based on a longer chapter on the topic produced for a United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) publication on development corridors.1 It aims to present the gaps between various aspects of the theory and practice of EIAs, explore some of the ways in which political factors may be contributing to these gaps, and suggest how future work on social and environmental protection and management might better account for political context in hopes of achieving greater impact.
Topic:
Climate Change, Energy Policy, Environment, Oil, Natural Resources, Gas, and Mining
Political Geography:
Global Focus

37. Gaining Ground in the Struggle Against Extractivism

Author:
Antulio Rosales and Claudia Rodríguez Gilly
Publication Date:
03-2022
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
The North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA)
Abstract:
From oil to mining, resource exploitation is the central battlefield for Venezuela’s land and environmental movements.
Topic:
Environment, Oil, Natural Resources, Social Movement, Mining, Land, and Extractive Industries
Political Geography:
South America and Venezuela

38. Guatemala on Trial: Maya Land Rights Case Reaches International Court

Author:
María Inés Taracena
Publication Date:
02-2022
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
The North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA)
Abstract:
After a decades-long fight against transnational mining interests and state repression, the community’s case could set a new precedent for Indigenous land and resource rights.
Topic:
Natural Resources, Courts, Mining, Land Rights, and Indigenous
Political Geography:
Central America and Guatemala

39. Mine Action and the Environment in Karabakh

Author:
Emil Hasanov
Publication Date:
04-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Baku Dialogues
Institution:
ADA University
Abstract:
The now‑liberated areas of Azerbaijan are contaminated by mines and explosive remnants of war (ERW), the clearance thereof being one of Baku’s highest post‑conflict priorities. Before proceeding any further, we must provide proper definitions of these terms, since they are technical in nature and thus may not be familiar to the general reader. According to the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti‑Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction that was adopted in Oslo in 1997 and entered into force in 1999 (it is colloquially called the AntiPersonnel Mine Ban Convention, or APMBC), an anti‑personnel mine “means a mine designed to be exploded by the presence, proximity or contact of a person and that will incapacitate, injure or kill one or more persons.” An antivehicle or antitank mine is effectually the same thing, except that it is designed to explode when triggered by a vehicle. Together, they fall under the catchall term mine, which the same document defines as a “munition designed to be placed under, on, or near the ground or other surface area and to be exploded by the presence, proximity, or contact of a person or a vehicle.” Furthermore, explosive remnants of war (ERW) are defined as explosive munitions left behind after a conflict has ended. They include unexploded artillery shells, grenades, mortars, rockets, air‑dropped bombs, and cluster munitions. If such weapons fail to detonate as intended for whatever reason, they are called unexploded ordnance (UXO); if, on the other hand, they have not been used during an armed conflict and have been left behind by the party that brought them to the battlefield, they are called abandoned explosive ordnance (AXO). Lastly, cluster bombs or cluster munitions, which are defined as weapons containing from several to hundreds of explosive submunitions. They are dropped either from the air or fired from the ground and are designed to break open in mid‑air, releasing submunitions and saturating an area that can be as wide as several football pitches. Based on past practice, the failure rate of cluster munitions to explode as intended stands at between 10 and 30 percent.
Topic:
Climate Change, Economics, Environment, Mining, and Recovery
Political Geography:
Central Asia, Asia, and Azerbaijan

40. China’s Antarctic Ambitions – and Their Implications for Australia

Author:
Yun Jiang
Publication Date:
08-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Australian Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
In a new special report AIIA China Matters Fellow Yun Jiang argues that popular Australian concerns around the Antarctic ambitions of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), including possible territorial claims, militarisation, and mining, are overstated.
Topic:
Military Strategy, Territorial Disputes, Hegemony, Conflict, Mining, and Strategic Interests
Political Geography:
China, Asia, and Australia