Resource Rights
| Published date | 01 June 2013 |
| Date | 01 June 2013 |
| Author | Cara Nine |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.2012.00972.x |
| Subject Matter | Original Article |
Resource Rightspost_972232..249
Cara Nine
University College Cork
Despite the fact that it is often taken for granted that political units and/or peoples have rights over the resources
within their territory,it is not clear why political author ity over persons should give rise to claims over resources,what
those claims should be, or how they could be justified. In an attempt to bring some clarity to these issues, I focus on
resource rights as a theoretical meeting point between political authority and rights over goods. Because self-
government rights are rights of collectives, my aim is to provide a theory of collective resource rights. The theory
advanced here provides an account of the how,what and why of collective rights over resources. In the final section
I argue that this theory also provides theoretical tools for addressing competing collective and individual claims over
resources. I examine two leading conceptions of collective resource rights in the political theory literature: (1) the
democratic account; and (2) the liberal nationalist account.I argue that both of these conceptions are wanting. I then
argue on behalf of my own theory,political leg itimacy overresources, that it providesa coherent nor mativefoundation
for resource rights.
Keywords: resource r ights; territory; nationalism; self-determination; global justice
Rights over resources are at the centre of contemporary political and philosophical thought
– we talk about indigenous rights to resources, the equal distribution of natural resources,
the resource curse, responsibility for climate change affecting our natural resources, and so
on. This talk is for good reason.War,f ailed states, poverty, ecological disasters, mass rape –
resource rights are fundamentally connected to all of these. Yet what are resource rights?
On first investigation, the traditional understanding of resource rights faces three
obstacles. First, collective resource rights seem to produce injustice both internally and
externally. Internal injustice results from collective resource rights because these rights
allow illegitimate regimes to perpetrate injustices internally with resources. The Khmer
Rouge’s reign of mass murder and tyranny, for example, relied on the government’s
control of natural resources – the military was financed through the sale of Cambodian
gemstones, and the coerced change to agrarian communism required control over all land
and resources in the area. External injustice results because the exclusive collective
resource right allows collectives to ignore the plausible claims that the global poor have
to the world’s resources.
A second obstacle concerns a possible disparity between culture and political control over
geographical regions. Current interpretations of resource rights stress imperialist divisions
of territor y, but these divisions often do not match cultural uses of the land. The Somali
people, for example, traditionally inhabit an area covering parts of Somalia, Ethiopia and
Yemen. And yet Somalian political territory follows lines of historical colonial rule. This
disparity between culture and politics seems unjustified.
The final obstacle concerns the nature of the values that justify resource rights. Explain-
ing how resource rights arise depends on a successful identification of this value. Disagree-
ment about this relevant value (as a cultural or economic value, for example) under mines
the conceptual coherence of resource rights.
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doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9248.2012.00972.x
POLITICAL STUDIES: 2013 VOL 61, 232–249
© 2012The Author.Political Studies © 2012 Political Studies Association
In this article I start by articulating the most influential conception of ‘resource rights’.
This understanding of resource rights includes both self-government and ownership rights
over resources. The remainder of the article is dedicated to uncovering a theory capable of
overcoming these obstacles and establishing a coherent normative foundation for collective
resource rights. Two existing accounts of resource rights provide an adequate response to
at least one of the obstacles, yet ultimately fail to provide a coherent normative foundation
for resource rights. First, the democratic account provides a response to the obstacle
regarding injustice. However, it cannot provide an account of the exclusive geographical
borders of resource rights. Second,the theor y from nationalism explains resource rights in
light of cultural worries, but it cannot provide an account of resource rights for all relevant
nations. After exploring these theories, I defend an alternative account that starts by
considering the third obstacle regarding value.I argue that the relevant value for establishing
resource rights is the value of political justice for geographical groups. From this vantage I
explain and defend a theory of political legitimacy over resources as offering a coherent
theoretical foundation for collective resource rights. An additional benefit of this theory is
that it responds to all three obstacles (although imperfectly in some cases).
Resource Rights: Concept1
Resource rights are the cluster of rights that an agent has to control the use of resources.
We may be tempted to articulate this conception as merely the ownership rights of a people
to precious natural resources,such as oil. However,the portrayal of resource rights as merely
ownership rights does not capture a fundamental aspect of resource rights: self-government
over resources. This oversight contributes to conflict and misunderstanding. For example,
the ambiguous translation of the Treaty of Waitangi (1840) between the Maori of New
Zealand and the British Crown has contributed to secessionist claims of the Maori. The
Treaty wording is ambiguous regarding Maori rights over their resources and lends itself to
two conflicting interpretations.On the one hand, the British interpretation gives the British
sovereignty rights over the territory and the Maor i only free title ownership of traditional
lands. Under this interpretation,Maor i ownership is similar to any free title land ownership
of citizens within a state. On the other hand, the Maori interpretation holds that the Maori
retain self-government rights over their lands.Under this Maor i interpretation, the British
retain only limited jurisdictional rights – resulting in something like an American-style
reservation for the Maori, with independent Maori rights of self-determination over their
resources and people.
In this example the nature of rights over traditional Maori resources is in dispute. The
British understood that the Maori retained only property r ights, and the Maori under-
stood that they retained also self-government rights over their resources. While the best
interpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi may not depend on the nature of the concept
of resource rights (but rather on an understanding of the intentions of the signatories, for
example), the example illustrates the distinction between property rights and a fuller set
of rights over resources.We can construe the debate between the British and the Maori
as a conflict over whether the Maori rights are merely property rights or are resource
rights in this fuller sense. It is this fuller sense of ‘resource rights’ that this article is
concerned with.
RESOURCE RIGHTS 233
© 2012The Author.Political Studies © 2012 Political Studies Association
POLITICAL STUDIES: 2013, 61(2)
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