Natural Resources and Violent Conflict - WaterWiki.net

getting it done 221The proliferation of actors involved in the governance of naturalresources means that resource exploitation linked to human rights orenvironmental abuses is more likely to be detected than in the past.Violence is also less and less accepted as a means of political struggle,meaning that economic activities supporting violence are more likelyto be denounced. Yet, although large extractive companies comeunder greater scrutiny, the complexity of commercial and financialoperations, the use of independent brokers and offshore companies, aswell as difficulties of access to many exploitation sites continue toleave too much room for conflict trade to operate. Furthermore, coordinationis largely fragmented when it comes to effective decisionmakingand enforcement. International instruments largely continue torely on national governments for enforcement, while the rise of voluntarymeasures by private actors risks weak self-regulation and ineffectiveenforcement.Despite the diversity of governance models and fragmentation ofenforcement instruments, some common issues can be identified. Inparticular, three key issues for the design of enforcement instrumentsto control natural resources related to conflict are the goals of theenforcement instrument, target and regulatory mechanisms, and scalesof application.Enforcement instruments relevant to conflict trade have two primarygoals:• To prevent resource exploitation and trade from financing war• To motivate belligerents to resolve a conflict through nonviolentmeans.In order to achieve these goals, instruments can target investmentsand technology transfer in resource exploitation and aim to preventaccess to markets for conflict resources. Other measures can includethe external control of resource areas and the destruction ofresources—as is the case with drug eradication programs. These measures,however, are more properly viewed as military interventionsrather than resource governance; this chapter examines such measuresonly in the light of peacekeeping deployment and the enforcement ofeconomic sanctions.Instruments of enforcement need to be based on criteria decidingwhich economic operations are licit and which are not. The incentivestructure will depend to some degree on the target of the enforcementinstrument:• Resources identified as conflict-prone or as involved in fuelingwar are submitted to specific trade regimes (for example, certificationof rough diamonds).