Law and Natural Resources 2: Biological Resources, Corporations and Mining

a)    Description

This module examines international, regional and national legal and institutional arrangements concerning the conservation and use of natural resources. It introduces legal principles relevant to the conservation and use of natural resources in international and national law. This module focuses on the international law aspects of natural resource use and conservation, the North-South dimension and on individual developing country case studies. Natural resource regulation is analysed within the broad conceptual framework of the notion of sustainable development. As a result, this module examines simultaneously economic development aspects of natural resource regulation, social development aspects and environmental aspects. This module specifically seeks to make the links between the exploitation of natural resources for macro-economic development and subsistence and other uses of natural resources for food security and health needs as well as the links between use for economic development and conservation, for instance, in the context of broader policy challenges such as climate change. This module starts with a background to natural resource regulation, including basic principles of international law relevant to natural resources, such as sovereignty and related concepts for natural resource appropriation, differential treatment/equity, sustainable development and human rights. It also examines the role of some of the main actors in natural resource use and conservation such as the World Bank and transnational companies. The module then moves on to examine a number of more specific issues within the context of selected natural resources. Natural resources considered may include water, genetic resources, forests, marine living and mineral resources of the seabed, minerals and energy.

Whereas Law and Natural Resources 1 offers the framework and conceptual foundations of this area of law.  Students who complete this course can go on to enrol in Law and Natural Resources 2, which focuses on cluster-based sectoral analysis.

b)   Indicative syllabus (subject to change)

Semester 2

Biological Resources

Week 1. Biological Resources: Food Security/Sovereignty & Forests

Week 2. Commercial Use of Plant Genetic Resources: Farmers/Peasants’ Rights and Access and Benefit Sharing 

Week 3. Controlling Access to Biological Resources: Traditional Knowledge Protection, Biopiracy and Geographical Indications 

Natural resources use, privatisation and corporations

Week 4. Privatisation of Natural Resources: Air and Water

Week 5. Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Accountability Related to Natural Resources

Week 6. Natural Resource Investment and Investor-State Disputes

Week 7. Corporate Liability and Use of Natural Resources

Mining, Oil/Gas & Energy 

Week 8. Mining and the Resource Curse  

Week 9. Oil and Gas

Week 10. Energy

c)   Assessment (subject to change)

Assessment: Essay: 3'500 words (100% of the total mark)

d)   General Reference Books Related to the Course