There are conflicts that arise because the dispute that leads to armed confrontation has to do with the abundance of natural resources in the country or region of the country where the war is taking place. The abundance of natural resources per se is not the sole trigger for conflict, crisis, and civil war, but there are in fact other concomitant elements that contribute to the increasing likelihood of conflict: e.g., weak State’s institutions, dictatorial government, kleptocratic or corrupt State, and the geography of the country itself which is an element that could contribute to the exacerbation of already precarious security situations. According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), in the last 60 years, at least 40% of all intrastate conflicts have had a link to natural resources, and such a connection increases the risk of a conflict relapse in the first five years after the alleged end of the violence. UNEP affirms that, since 1990, at least 18 violent conflicts have been fueled by the exploitation of natural resources, whether high-value resources like timber, diamonds, gold, minerals and oil, or scarce ones like fertile land and water (1). The causes of conflicts are therefore multifactorial.
Hence, the question is concerning what a country in which there is an abundance of natural resources risks. There are many examples of wars that were, among other greed and grievances reasons, fought because of the abundance of natural resources. Many countries with an abundance of natural resources have an inefficient way of spending the revenues from the sale or exploitation of natural resources on their territory that are sold on the international market. This inefficiency in spending revenues is also given by the volatile nature of commodity prices (e.g., gold and oil prices), which causes discrepant incomes from one year to the next: perhaps in one year a country has a great income, and the following year a bad one, for example if oil prices fall. Inefficient spending is therefore caused by the difficulty of planning expenditure since prices are volatile. In addition, there is also the financial mismanagement of many governments or Presidents who usually hoard large amounts of revenue from the selling of this natural resources.
Consider, for example, the conflict in the Niger Delta, ongoing since 2003. Nigeria is Africa’s largest oil producer (2). Since Nigeria’s independence in 1960, oil companies have ventured into oil extraction in this territory. Despite this, the country has not diversified its economic activities over the years: in 2000, 40% of the GDP came from oil extraction, which is a problem that is reflected in the volatility of oil prices on the international market (3).
Over the course of four decades, the Niger Delta was overexploited, and this led to an environmental disaster that was followed by conflicts with the local population who no longer had any alternative means of livelihood: the land was devastated and today agriculture no longer exists. Moreover, no one in the area benefited from development programs promoted by the mining industry. The government, at one point, militarized the area to prevent rebel groups from destroying multinational companies’ refinery facilities to steal and resell the oil, but this fueled an already existing conflict.
The government repression only furthered illegal activity. As a matter of facts, oil thefts are out of control and the black market is booming. Moreover, the local population has organized itself in sabotaging groups in revenge of oil companies’ refineries destruction of any means of self-sustenance in this area as well as the provoking of diseases due to severe environment pollution.
In the 2000s there was the creation of the Niger Delta Development Commission, but it was criticized by the civil society in that, to date, there has been no compensation for the abuses and the high impact that these oil extraction activities have had and are still having on the environment (4). In 2012, Amnesty International, together with Serap (a civil organization of the area) called to trial the Nigerian State itself and, in the first instance, six oil companies as well. In a judgement that no one was expecting, the ECOWAS’ Court of Justice recognized that the government of Nigeria had not been sufficiently responsible in the management of natural resources vis á vis the multinational enterprises, causing severe negative impacts on the population and the environment (5). However, this judgement notwithstanding, any change in the circumstances described took place and, in addition to this, neither a definition of action to mitigate the ongoing environmental and social disaster nor any form of economic compensation to the population has been found. Today attacks at pipelines are constantly threatened and life conditions are at stake, and no attempt to intervene to mitigate the situation has so far been successful.
There are many examples, besides the one analyzed here, of armed conflicts that have broken out due to the abundance of natural resources. Wars that have lasted decades or are still ongoing for reasons of greed overriding existing grievances. However, the presence of abundant natural resources is not always to be seen as a curse. There are examples of countries, such as Botswana, where the presence of abundant natural resources has not led to armed confrontations. This is because the local government elites have been able to put into practice strategies and policies designed to consciously exploit these resources in such a way as to bring wealth to the entire country (6), thus without the predatory behavior that has occurred elsewhere. As a diamond-rich country, Botswana has been able to reinvest the profits from the sale of diamonds into social, educational and infrastructure activities, and this has had a good impact on the population. The government of Botswana has implemented key long-term visions for the positive management of natural resources in terms of impact on the population (6).
It is therefore clear that good natural resource management can be key to long-term development, but if there is corruption, mismanagement, and violence, as in the reported case of the Niger Delta, then the abundance of natural resources is negative for both the population and the environment. Good governance of natural resources, as demonstrated by the case of Botswana, can ensure social development.
Reversing the situation in Nigeria requires targeted intervention by International Organizations aimed at sanctioning both the predatory behavior of the government’s elite and the uncontrolled exploitation of oil fields by oil companies that has been endangering the environment and people’s lives for a long time. Furthermore, the work of these Organizations, in conjunction with the work of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) must be aimed at restoring conditions conducive to human life.
References:
1) https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/conflict-and-natural-resources
2) https://reader.elsevier.com/reader/sd/pii/S1877042810014291?token=13291AA499DF761EC9F81EA3BE1C9CF1C7A90EFE7B89C3559DA4837A2AE94C6B309BCFA31B3E9A94623621F80E1B5009&originRegion=eu-west-1&originCreation=20230112145527
3) https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/099520010272224660/pdf/P1771510b38fda01e0afec01edd810d8cde.pdf
4) https://www.nddc.gov.ng
5) https://www.globalhealthrights.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/SERAP_V_FEDERAL_REPUBLIC_OF_NIGERIA.pdf
6) https://portals.iucn.org/library/sites/library/files/documents/2007-061.pdf
By The European Institute for International Law and International Relations.
