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The Resource Curse - A Legal Perspective

This paper focuses on the legal dimensions of the problem often referred to as the “resource curse”, i.e. that countries where there is an abundance of natural resources tend to do worse in terms of human and economic development than countries with less natural resources. From a legal standpoint, the two main legal questions raised by the resource-curse problem are the following: (i) who owns natural resources, and (ii) what legal consequences are attached to spoliation or misuse. After some initial clarifications, the article discusses the main aspects of these two questions from the perspective of international and domestic law, before providing a concise assessment of the current state of the law on this topic.