Publication of the week:

DR DEBORAH DAVENPORT

Monday 27 October 2008

Jane A. Winzer & Deborah S. Davenport, "Conflict over natural resources", in Michael T. Snarr & D. Neil Snarr (eds), Introducing global issues (4th ed., Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2008), ch.15.

The authors bring natural resource conflicts into this introductory text on issues facing the world in the 21st Century. They examine whether the characteristics of specific natural resources contribute to variation in the likelihood of competition and conflict over their use. Dr Winzer and Dr Davenport question whether natural resources that are located within the boundaries of one sovereign state are less likely to engender conflict than resources that are transboundary in nature, or whether renewable resources are less likely to foster competition than non-renewable ones. The authors illustrate these differences through the cases of four natural resources: forests and global movements towards timber certification; US-Canadian conflicts over salmon fishing in the Pacific; conflicts over water resources in the Middle East; and the oil-based conflicts involving Iraq since 1990. They conclude by examining the arguments that have been made regarding the 'environmental' nature of the Darfur conflict.

Deborah Davenport (PhD, Emory University, Atlanta, 2002) is Lecturer in International Political Economy at the University of Buckingham, Director of the MA in Global Affairs, and author of Global Environmental Negotiations and US Interests (New York and London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006). Her research covers global forest policy and other multilateral environmental negotiating processes.