While literature on companies' contributions to local development exists, little is known about the specific dilemmas encountered on the ground when operating under adverse conditions, and how transparency can be improved. Companies typically need to navigate through a complex web of...

Biodiversity informatics is an emerging discipline which deals with the collection, collation, analysis, prediction, and dissemination of data and information related to the earth's biotic resources. This article is a review of the policy and legislation instruments relevant to biodiversity...

Domestic laws are the ideal legal instrument to regulate the mining sector’s contribution to climate change mitigation and adaptation. Even so, as a stop-gap-measure, governments may consider updating model mining development agreements (MMDAs) or negotiating climate­-related contractual...

While the development of the mining sector continues to be a strategic priority for Kyrgyzstan, local resistance against gold mining exploitation has been on the rise. Since 2010 there has been an upsurge in social protests related to mining activities from local residents who typically have...

Indigenous and tribal peoples’ right to free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) has transformative potential. Where this right is recognized and meaningfully operationalized, FPIC can help safeguard a variety of rights specific to indigenous and tribal peoples, and while doing so, remake the...

Energy is pivotal for socio-economic and cultural development. Last century witnessed a drastic increase, on one hand on the consumption of energy and, on the other on greenhouse gases emissions. Traditionally, energy security has been linked with the need to guarantee supply and, in turn,...

Despite the fact that “heavy skies” (gravioris caeli) have been identified and legally classified as a serious concern since ancient times, air pollution still leads to millions of avoidable deaths and significantly impacts the climate. Today more than ever, the protection of people and a...

For the last 20 years, fostering greater transparency in the historically opaque extractive industries has been a governance priority in the sector. It is now time to build on the progress made and unlock greater gains from it. Achieving this requires getting serious about politics. The...

Global regulations involving clean energy technologies have evolved in recent decades. Such evolution came as a result of technological disparities between the North and the South. Such regulatory changes came because of the failure of developed nations to assist developing countries in...

Using a global dataset of over 840,000 equity, bond and syndicated loan investment banking deals, we build the fossil fuel investment brokerage profile of financial centres worldwide between 2000 and 2018. We also study whether city-level fossil fuel divestment commitments and country level...