Development and Economy in Mongolia through a Human Rights Law Lens

This article studies the Mongolian economic and development policies implemented in recent years until March 2020, including its revenue matrix sustainability, from an international human rights law perspective. Policy and legal recommendations for discussion are also presented. Based on a United Nations mission the author conducted to Mongolia in 2019, this country study examines the macroeconomic policies, including debt issues, from a human rights perspective; the extent to which mineral rents are translated into inclusive and comprehensive social and environmental policies, focusing on the mining project Oyu Tolgoi; the impact of illicit financial flows on human rights; and the effects of lending for infrastructure and mining projects and other foreign direct investments. The study concludes that economic diversification and conducting effective gender-sensitive, participatory human rights and environmental impact assessments of economic reforms and mining and infrastructure projects are the main challenges Mongolia faces.

Resource rents in the diamond industry 2014–19: Rents, issues, methods, and data availability

The focus of this study is rent in the diamond industry. Based on extensive datasets and a discussion of all relevant costs, we present resource rent statistics from the diamond industry in key producer countries in emerging economies such as Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Lesotho, Namibia, Sierra Leone, and South Africa, as well as the Russian Federation. Resource rents give an indication of the available space for taxation. To use this potential tax space effectively in the long term without changing the investment behaviour of the mining companies and the long-term viability of the industry, all costs, such as environmental and financial costs, must be included. The study attempts to expand on earlier work by the World Bank to calculate mineral rents for mining industries other than the diamond industry. Rent calculated as precisely as possible is an important basis for wealth calculations and for mineral policy development.

Role and importance of mineral resource complex in national economies: solid minerals

As the economy growth it gets unfeasible for emerging economies to maintain high and stable rates of economic growth predominantly owing to increase of mining production, expansion of mineral export and recovery of mineral rents. However, while direct contribution of mining and processing of mineral materials to national economy is reduced, mineral resource complex acquires a new function — supplying related industries with mineral raw materials, remains important factor of further accelerated industrial development, contributes to state budget, helps to solve employment problem and secures important multiplicative effects in national economies.

Competitive Clientelism and the Political Economy of Mining in Ghana

This chapter highlights the centrality of clientelist political pressures in explaining why over 100 years of mineral resource extraction has failed to translate into broad-based development in Ghana. Contrary to studies that highlight the role of inclusive political settlements for the effective management of mineral rents, we find that broad-based elite inclusion also risks undermining the effective management of rents for long-term development in contexts where rents are deployed with the aim of ‘buying-off’ elites who can potentially undermine the stability of ruling coalitions. All ruling coalitions have allocated significant shares of mineral rents to chiefs not necessarily for the socio-economic development of mineral-rich communities, but mainly because political elites want to avoid provoking resistance from a group that brokers land and votes in rural areas. Under such circumstances, inclusive political settlements may at best result in unproductive peace, as substantial mineral resources are shared for consumption rather than development.