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Risky business: political risk insurance and the law and governance of natural resources

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 May 2015

Celine Tan
Celine Tan*
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of Law, School of Law, University of Warwick. Email: [email protected].
*
[email protected]
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Abstract

This paper explores the implications of political risk insurance (PRI) in the regulation and governance of natural resources sectors in developing countries. Operating in a hybrid public–private sphere, PRI arrangements involve a more complex web of contractual and non-contractual relations than commercial insurance products, and parties to such arrangements are inserted into a much more intricate framework of legal and political governance, with correspondingly broader international and domestic implications. The paper argues that PRI represents a form of government rationality that provides a framework for organising and regulating the behaviour of actors involved in natural resource investments in developing countries. In natural resources projects where tensions regularly exist between the interests of the foreign investor, the host state and local communities, PRI arrangements can reframe the terms of engagement between these various stakeholders and redefine the host state's engagement with the broader international community.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Law in Context , Volume 11 , Special Issue 2: International Economic Law, Natural Resources and Sustainable Development , June 2015 , pp. 174 - 194
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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