Investment and Extractive Industries

Good governance of the extractives sector requires a significant degree of state involvement in order to maximize the benefits, and to limit the environmental and social harms that can result from the exploitation of natural resources.

This briefing note (updated in July 2022) provides background on international investment law, specifically the ISDS mechanism, and the challenges it poses to the governance of extractive industries, as well as what host-governments can do to address these challenges.

This report, “Preparing Legal Frameworks for Environmental Disasters” considers the approaches taken by several governments to domestic environmental legal frameworks and environmental liabilities in the context of foreign investments in mining or oil and gas.

Additional relevant work includes:

• Paper: Investment Treaties and Industrial Policy: Select Case Studies on State Liability for Efforts to Encourage, Shape and Regulate Economic Activities in Extractive Industries and Infrastructure
• Report: Space for Local Content Policies and Strategies
• Report and brief: Conceptualizing Economic Linkages to the Resource Sector
• Submission: Submission to OPIC on Revisions to its Environmental and Social Policy Statement

Authors

Brooke Güven

Perrine Toledano

Director of Research and Policy

Lise Johnson

Senior Fellow

Themes

• International Investment Law
• Mining, Metals and Resource-based Development

Tags

• Linkages
• Local content