The legal instruments associated with economic globalization, including foreign investment agreements, global markets and trade agreements, have significantly facilitated foreign resource extraction and imbued it with particular geographic patterns. The majority of mining companies operating globally are headquartered in Canada, making it an important “home country” for companies. At the same time, almost half of these Canadian companies’ activities take place in resource rich countries in Latin America, sometimes referred to as “host countries” The social conflicts that extraction often generates between local communities and foreign companies are increasingly trans-border in that they may implicate home and host states, investors, NGOs, lawyers, journalists and researchers in multiple jurisdictions.
By Charis Kamphuis
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