Transnational law and the politics of conflict minerals regulation: construing the extractive industry as a ‘partner’ for peace

This article considers the distributional effects of public and semi-private arrangements regulating extractive activities in conflict settings. The focus is on transnational legal interventions meant to improve how natural resources are ‘managed’ in fragile, war-torn, and post-conflict countries, namely the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme for Diamonds, the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative, and the OECD Due Diligence Guidance on Responsible Supply Chain of Minerals. Drawing upon a variety of critical traditions, it elucidates the assumptions upon which dominant approaches to ‘conflict minerals’ are premised. In doing so, the article shows how these initiatives fail to challenge the structural and political economic conditions that cause the problems they are intended to address. Further, it argues that, by framing the extractive industry as a ‘partner’ for peace, these legal instruments contribute to the legitimising of its continued operation in post-conflict countries, thereby stabilising the prevailing global structures of power in natural resource governance.