The Emerging Custom of Human Rights-Based Development: A Model Agreement for Successful Exploitation of Lake Albert's Oil Reserves (original) (raw)
Related papers
NATURAL RESOURCE EXTRACTION AND IMPLEMENTATION OF INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS OBLIGATIONS
TUMA LAW REVIEW , 2020
Scholarly inquiries pertaining to the intersection of business and human rights in the natural resource extraction value chain have burgeoned in the last few decades. Some inquiries confirm that in the absence of robust human rights safeguards, local communities risk human rights violations such as forceful evictions from their lands, pollution of their drinking water, destruction of their farm lands or grazing lands, and decimation of biodiversity. It's noteworthy that some local communities predominantly depend on biodiversity for medicinal and other purposes of immense cultural and spiritual significance. So far however, there has been little discussion about State implementation of international human rights norms and standards relevant to natural resource extraction in relation to the rights of local communities. With a focus on the extraction of hydrocarbons, this article examines Tanzania's implementation of international human rights obligations promulgated under the auspices of the United Nations. A key finding of the article is that effective implementation of international human rights standards, concluding observations that treaty supervisory bodies issue and recommendations emanating from the universal periodic review mechanism (UPR) is catalytic in avoiding or minimizing possible sufferings resulting from natural resource extraction. The research thus recommends that while they are not legally binding per se, concluding observations and UPR recommendations need to be thoroughly implemented. This is because they are invaluable diagnostic tools and enablers of States to take stock of areas requiring concerted State actions or inactions if the State in question is to meet its international obligations contained in a given treaty.
THE POTENTIAL IMPACTS OF THE EAST AFRICAN CRUDE OIL PIPELINE (EACOP) ON HUMAN RIGHTS IN UGANDA
This paper is primarily centered on interaction between the advancement of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (herein after the EACOP) on one hand and aspects of human rights on the other hand. This paper shall seek to borrow ideas from land rights, environmental rights and other right based narratives in demonstrating how and why the EACOP project is not only the most exciting socioeconomic but also a project giving room for opposing phenomenological discourses most of which are hinged upon ideas of human rights. This analysis shall therefore adopt a comparative as well as a reflective research design in asserting that in as much as the project is economically viable, lesson must be picked from other developing regions where similar projects have culminated into detrimental consequences upon the communities.
Rights to natural resources and human rights
Exclusive authority over natural resources is one of the most prized rights attached to sovereignty, according to current international law. It implies a set of powers, prerogatives, and immunities the most consequential of which is the right to legislate and adjudicate property rights over natural resources, including nationalization of foreign property, permission/power to decide on terms of foreign investment or extraction contracts, and control of the sales of natural resources. Allocated to states and their people in the process of decolonisation and the postwar transformation of international law, the sovereign right to natural resources was meant to correct – and indeed corrected – the injustice of colonial dispossession of natural resources. Simultaneously, it was meant to secure economic benefits arising from the exploitation of natural resources for the people of developing and newly independent states. The principle that states have an exclusive right to use natural resources occurring on their territories so that they can fully realize the right to self-determination and provide well-being and development to their people lies at the foundation of the new system of the distribution of rights to natural resources. 1 Yet many countries have failed to use their natural endowments for national development and the well-being of the people. Often, natural resources have been used for the private benefits of ruling elites and oligarchs, to sustain repression, authoritarianism, military rule, and even to wage an unjust war (Ross 2004). In current conditions of growing scarcity and high demand – and hence very high economic value of many natural resources – , the right over natural resources can easily be turned into an ability to accumulate private wealth and sustain unjust rule. The case of Equatorial Guinea described by Leif Wenar has become notorious: its president Teodoro Obiang, who came to power unconstitutionally, is continuously capable of selling the country's oil and using the revenues to sustain absolute repression of his people, and the lavish lifestyle of his family. And yet, millions of gallons of Equatorial Guinea's oil keep arriving in the United States and other countries with unquestioned legal title to these resources – a title which is anchored in the fact of Obiang's sheer might and violent coercion. In this and many similar cases, the recognition of the right to natural resources seems to follow the old rule of international law – the so called principle of " effectiveness " – according to which an entity is recognized as a sovereign state and hence entitled to all the powers, rights, privileges, and immunities ascribed to states by international law if it has an effective control over the population and the territory. The principle of effectiveness, however, is no longer a valid principle (Buchanan 2004, 6). According to current international law, the capacity to sustain control over a population and a territory by means of military force and repression is not considered as the adequate basis for the recognition of this political entity's exercise of power as internationally legitimate. Today, no state is internationally recognized as legitimate which came into being through aggressive war and violation of territorial integrity. No foreign occupation can deprive peoples of their right to self-determination and sovereignty. No government can be recognized as legitimate if it institutionalizes apartheid or engages in ethnic cleansing and genocide (Cassese 2011, 12-13).
Human Rights and Rights to Natural Resources
The paper Human Rights and Rights to Natural Resources explores the historical affinity between international law of human rights and rights of states to natural resources and the aim of both systems to realize the international justice. The paper assumes a practice-based approach to human rights and argues that the chief purpose of human rights is to provide a universal standard for regulating the behavior of states, to limit their sovereignty for the sake of promoting welfare and protecting equal moral status of individuals. The key point of the paper is then to show that due to the historical co-originality and due to the transformative impact human rights have had on state sovereignty, international human rights law has direct implication for how we should interpret the states’ rights to natural resources – the scope of resource rights, the conditions of their rightful and legitimate exercise by states, the substantive limits on those rights, and finally how we might envision the international system of natural resource governance.
2020
This community based human rights impact assessment highlights the social, environmental, cultural, and human rights risks of the East African Crude Oil pipeline for communities located along the proposed pipeline corridor in Uganda and Tanzania. Co-researched and produced by Global Rights Alert (GRA), Civic Response on Environment and Development (CRED), Northern Coalition for Extractives and Environment (NCEE), and Oxfam, it identifies and documents the actual and potential human rights implications of this major infrastructure project and makes recommendations to the governments and the companies to mitigate the adverse impacts, and to increase the positive impacts of this project and advocate for inclusiveness, transparency and accountability. 3
Cornell Law School Inter-University Graduate Student Conference Paper No. 12/2008, 2008
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is endowed with vast mineral wealth. However, although renewed activities in the mining sector ameliorated the DRC's fiscal position and GDP growth in 2005-07, generally the peoples of the DRC neither participate in nor benefit from the exploitation of mineral resources. The problem is that the exploitation of mineral resources in the DRC go against the interests of the Congolese peoples. To be sure, the Congolese peoples are some of the poorest in the world. The main purpose of this paper is to explore the ways in which the peoples of the DRC can in domestic, regional and international law gain control over mineral resources. Accordingly, the basic question for this paper is: What legal justifications in national, regional and international law could serve to increase the control of the peoples over mineral resources in the DRC? The paper argues that the scholarship on the legal justifications for a people-based mineral control do not fully articulate the right to control mineral resources (RCMR). The existing scholarship on the RCMR is limited in that it fails to: (1) fully articulate the RCMR, (2) examine the RCMR in terms of first and second generations of human rights and in terms of national mineral resources law, and (3) address the RCMR in the particular circumstances of the DRC. This paper fills up these gaps in the scholarship on the RCMR. Firstly, the paper demonstrates that, in Congolese law, regional and international law, there is more than one principal justification for a people-based control of mineral resources. These justifications include popular sovereignty, socioeconomic rights, the right of peoples to enjoy their national wealth, economic self-determination, permanent sovereignty over natural resources, and the right to development. Secondly, the paper utilizes democratic and socioeconomic rights enshrined in the Congolese Constitution and the Mining Code as a point of departure in advocating a people-based control of mineral resources. Finally, the paper gives an overview of the exploitation of mineral resources in the particular circumstances of the DRC.
Ucias Edited Volumes, 2002
Transboundary natural resources pose particular problems for the international community, and the community of African States presents no exception. The peaceful management and utilization of these resources is a universal aspiration, but the principles and norms governing international cooperation over natural resources are often just as contested as the ownership of the resource itself. In Part One, the emergent practices, norms and principles applicable to transboundary freshwater and petroleum are reviewed, along with the possibility of further development of these norms through the current mandate of the UN Special Rapporteur on Shared Natural Resources, Ambassador Chusei Yamada. The history of the UN Convention on the Law of Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses is reviewed, with an emphasis upon the foundational principles which it contains. The emergence of the petroleum Joint Development Agreement is also analyzed, again emphasizing the fundamental norms of cooperation upon which this practice has been built. Part Two addresses the specific example of the Nile River Basin, examining theories of distributive justice in the light of State practice in the Nile River Basin to date. A vision of distributive justice and state action is advanced, drawing on the theoretical bases of literature regarding the morality of states, and cosmopolitanism. A combination of pragmatic and theoretical perspectives permits the development of recommendations for future action by States engaged in the Nile Basin Initiative, for the common good. * Doctoral (JSD) candidate, University of California, Berkeley. PhD (Moscow); MA IAS (UC Berkeley), LLM (Boalt Hall, UC Berkeley), LLB & LLM (Baku). Zewdineh's field experience and area of research include, regional peace and security architecture, conflict early warning mechanisms and international dispute settlement (private and public) related to boundaries and transboundary natural resources. ** Doctoral (JSD) candidate, University of California, Berkeley. MALD (Fletcher); CEI (IUHEI); LLB & BCom (Murdoch). Ian's forthcoming JSD dissertation concerns the resolution of disputes over transboundary natural resources, with particular reference to petroleum and aquifers.
Analysis of Property Rights on Natural Resources: Oil Exploration in Uganda
2017
By the end of 2006, findings in the Lake Albert region of Uganda recommended that entire oil reserves in the block would add up to 2.5 billion barrels. This would mark the Albertine Graben one of the biggest onshore oil fields in Africa and would guarantee the potential to convert Uganda's agriculture-based economy. However, the governance of this resource faces numerous challenges. The aim of this research is to get a clear overview of these challenges considering the citizen perspective, since they are affected by the process of oil exploitation. The main research question considers the most pressing governance related problems according to the citizens facing oil exploitation in Uganda. A mixture of mutal quantitative and qualitative procedures was used. A sample of n=70 respondents was studied using structured questionnaires, our data was subjected to Excel analysis. There was found that there is a lack of government commitment on clear policies 29 %, corruption 56 %, enviro...
Sustaining the UTILIZATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES IN NIGERIA through human rights consideration (1)
In recent years, there has been an increased call for what can be referred to as environmental justice. This expression has found support in the fact that indigenes resident in resource extraction environments, ethnic minorities, least educated and impoverished people suffer tremendously from exposure to environmental hazards caused by exploration of natural resources in their environment. This work is an exposition of the age-long battle between the effects of transnational corporations’ activities in developing countries such as Nigeria and the infringement of rights of the inhabitants of extraction areas. The work analyses the principles of international environmental law and creates an exception under international human rights law which demands that States can now be held culpable for acts committed in violation of norms of customary international law. The efficacy of international instruments in achieving these rights is highlighted, considering the fact that the Constitution ...