Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Conflict and cooperation on natural
resources: Justifying the CoCooN
programme
Georg Frerks
1
,Ton Dietz
2
& Pieter van der Zaag
3
Abstract
This chapter provides an overview of the recent academic debates about
the link between natural resources and conflict, and the policy initiatives in the field
of resource governance that have formed the background of the collaborative knowl-
edge, research and innovation programme on Conflict and Cooperation over Natural
Resources in Developing Countries (CoCooN). It aims to highlight the contrasting
viewpoints and debates on the nexus between conflict and resources, while simul-
taneously demonstrating that a level of convergence between those views has been
developing over the last decade. Moreover, it demonstrates that several initiatives have
been developed in the international and Dutch policy domains that attempt to contain
or prevent resource-related conflicts. The chapter also outlines how the CoCooN pro-
gramme has come into being and how it tries to respond to those debates and policy
initiatives.
Keywords
Natural resources, environmental conflict, environmental peace build-
ing, resource governance regimes, transparency, commodity tracking.
2.1 INTRODUCTION
The last two decades have seen a rise in debates about the relationship between natu-
ral resources, conflict and peace-building in the fields of conflict studies, development
studies, political science, political ecology/geography, environment and climate change.
In the late 1990s, the nexus between natural resources and conflict centred on the
issue of resource scarcity, and was three-cornered: a neo-Malthusian approach linking
resource scarcity directly with social breakdown and conflict; a neoclassical economist
approach focusing on institutions and innovation to conserve natural resources
and thus preventing conflict; and a distributionist approach that highlights the
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