natural resources

EU recovers appetite for trade in green industry push

31-Jan-2023 Reuters

The European Union is aiming to enact up to five trade deals in record time to ensure its future as a clean tech leader, by securing supplies of key raw materials, increasing markets for green exports and reducing its reliance on China.

EU, Kazakhstan ink agreement on raw materials and renewable hydrogen at COP27

23-Jan-2023 The Astana Times

The European Union and Kazakhstan seek to strengthen their strategic partnership by signing an agreement on raw materials, batteries and renewable hydrogen.

EU to introduce targets for raw materials self-sufficiency

9-Dec-2022 Euractiv

Existing EU free-trade deals with Canada, Japan and Vietnam contain provisions about raw materials. And there are ongoing talks about including a raw materials chapter in trade agreements with Chile and Australia.

The conflict between traditional miners in Marmato and Canadian transnational mining companies: Another ISDS dispute over natural resources in Colombia

31-Mar-2022 IISD

In Marmato, the foreign investment promotion and protection system facilitated the transformation of the traditional small-scale mining regime into a transnational large-scale mining regime.

Chinese companies exploit Indonesia’s natural resources under BRI Initiative

29-Mar-2022 ANI

The operations of Chinese companies under the Belt and Road Initiative in Indonesia have become a hazard for the country’s environment, disturbing its ecological equilibrium resulting into population displacement.

Rethinking investment law from the ground up: extractivism, human rights, and investment treaties

9-Apr-2021 IISD

For many people affected by resource extraction, it is the prevailing legal regime that dis-embeds and disintegrates, because investment treaties can protect ventures that upend their lives with little scope for voice or redress.

US Consulate a turning point for disputed Western Sahara

11-Jan-2021 AP

Trump said the goal of the Western Sahara consulate would be “to promote economic and trade opportunities in the region.”

Sovereign rights to natural resources as a basis for denouncing international adjudication of investment disputes: A reflection on the Tanzanian approach

11-Sep-2020 Afronomics Law

Tanzania’s reforms show that the claim that African states should regard ISDS mechanism as the preferred method for resolving investment disputes is not only very contested, but that there are legitimate grounds for those contestations.

Alternatives for the ‘Energy and Raw Materials Chapters’ in EU trade agreements

4-Jun-2020 Power Shift

How trade agreements could strengthen human rights and environmental protection in the raw materials sector.

China’s raw materials strategy

24-Jan-2020 Policy Forum

The BRI builds China’s commercial ties abroad by financing, constructing, and developing major transport, energy, technology, and other infrastructure projects in the Indo-Pacific, Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas.

Breaking new ground: The EU’s push for raw materials sovereignty

18-Nov-2019 Euractiv

When it comes to critical raw materials, the Commission is exploring fair trade agreements with Africa, Australia and Chile while the Canada-Europe trade deal could be a boon for sourcing nickel and rare earths.

Belt and road initiative: Ominously, Chinese investment in South Asia target control of natural resources

12-Feb-2018 Financial Express

Economic corridors have hardly been as controversial as China’s Belt and Road initiative (BRI). It could have avoided controversies if it had proceeded in a consultative fashion like multi-country cross-border corridors.

Government regulatory space in the shadow of BITs: The case of Tanzania’s natural resource regulatory reform

22-Dec-2017 IISD

Tanzania passed three new laws that significantly change the regulatory landscape governing natural resources and the mining sector in particular.

Community perspectives in investor-state arbitration

16-Jun-2017 IIED

This report examines whether and how investor-state arbitral tribunals consider community perspectives, interests and rights in their settlement of investment disputes.

Nigeria: Trade negotiation office to advise govt on how to resolve EPA challenge

10-Jun-2017 All Africa

"We have looked at the agreement and we believe that the agreements are situated in the 19th century and we are now in the 21st century," Nigerian govt claims

Gold jewelry maker asks government for FTA with UAE

28-Feb-2017 Jakarta Post

Major gold jewelry producer has asked the government to establish a free trade agreement with the United Arab Emirates to lower the country’s import tax for Indonesian jewelry.