IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/pophec/v14y2015i2p129-151.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Against ‘permanent sovereignty’ over natural resources

Author

Listed:
  • Chris Armstrong

    (University of Southampton, UK)

Abstract

The doctrine of permanent sovereignty over natural resources is a hugely consequential one in the contemporary world, appearing to grant nation-states both jurisdiction-type rights and rights of ownership over the resources to be found in their territories. But the normative justification for that doctrine is far from clear. This article elucidates the best arguments that might be made for permanent sovereignty, including claims from national improvement of or attachment to resources, as well as functionalist claims linking resource rights to key state functions. But it also shows that these defences are insufficient to justify permanent sovereignty and that in many cases they actually count against it as a practice. They turn out to be compatible, furthermore, with the dispersal of resource rights away from the nation-state which global justice appears to demand.

Suggested Citation

  • Chris Armstrong, 2015. "Against ‘permanent sovereignty’ over natural resources," Politics, Philosophy & Economics, , vol. 14(2), pages 129-151, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:pophec:v:14:y:2015:i:2:p:129-151
    DOI: 10.1177/1470594X14523080
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1470594X14523080
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1470594X14523080?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cornes,Richard & Sandler,Todd, 1996. "The Theory of Externalities, Public Goods, and Club Goods," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521477185, October.
    2. Robert J. Smith, 1981. "Resolving the Tragedy of the Commons by Creating Private Property Rights in Wildlife," Cato Journal, Cato Journal, Cato Institute, vol. 1(2), pages 439-468, Fall.
    3. David Miller, 2012. "Territorial Rights: Concept and Justification," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 60(2), pages 252-268, June.
    4. Malin Falkenmark & Jan Lundqvist, 1998. "Towards water security: political determination and human adaptation crucial," Natural Resources Forum, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 22(1), pages 37-51, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Johan Eyckmans & Michael Finus, 2006. "New roads to international environmental agreements: the case of global warming," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 7(4), pages 391-414, December.
    2. Ingrid Ott & Stephen J. Turnovsky, 2006. "Excludable and Non‐excludable Public Inputs: Consequences for Economic Growth," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 73(292), pages 725-748, November.
    3. Andrew B. Whitford & Derrick Anderson, 2021. "Governance landscapes for emerging technologies: The case of cryptocurrencies," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 15(4), pages 1053-1070, October.
    4. Acocella Nicola & Di Bartolomeo Giovanni, 2013. "Population location, commuting and local public goods: A political economy approach," wp.comunite 0105, Department of Communication, University of Teramo.
    5. Abhilas Pradhan & Rabinarayan Patra, 2013. "Heterogeneity, collective action and management sustainability in common property forest resources: case study from the Indian state Odisha," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 15(4), pages 979-997, August.
    6. Birdyshaw, Edward & Ellis, Christopher, 2007. "Privatizing an open-access resource and environmental degradation," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(2-3), pages 469-477, March.
    7. Kverndokk, Snorre & Figenbaum, Erik & Hovi, Jon, 2020. "Would my driving pattern change if my neighbor were to buy an emission-free car?," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    8. Cornes Richard & Sandler Todd, 2000. "Pareto-Improving Redistribution and Pure Public Goods," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 1(2), pages 169-186, May.
    9. David Kelsey & Frank Milne, 2006. "Externalities, monopoly and the objective function of the firm," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 29(3), pages 565-589, November.
    10. Matteo Migheli & Giovanni B. Ramello, 2014. "Open Access Journals & Academics’ Behaviour," ICER Working Papers 03-2014, ICER - International Centre for Economic Research.
    11. Wiktor Adamowicz & Mark Dickie & Shelby Gerking & Marcella Veronesi & David Zinner, 2014. "Household Decision Making and Valuation of Environmental Health Risks to Parents and Their Children," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 1(4), pages 481-519.
    12. John B. Loomis, 2013. "Incorporating distributional issues into benefit–cost analysis: why, how, and two empirical examples using non-market valuation," Chapters, in: Scott O. Farrow & Richard Zerbe, Jr. (ed.), Principles and Standards for Benefit–Cost Analysis, chapter 9, pages 294-316, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    13. Wolfgang Buchholz & Wolfgang Peters, 2007. "Justifying the Lindahl solution as an outcome of fair cooperation," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 133(1), pages 157-169, October.
    14. Clemens Heuson & Wolfgang Peters & Reimund Schwarze & Anna-Katharina Topp, 2015. "Voluntary International Climate Finance Under The Post-Kyoto Framework: The Strategic Consequences Of Different Modes Of Funding," Climate Change Economics (CCE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 6(03), pages 1-26.
    15. Mr. Kenneth Rogoff & Yuanchen Yang, 2022. "A Tale of Tier 3 Cities," IMF Working Papers 2022/196, International Monetary Fund.
    16. Hikaru Ogawa, 2010. "Fiscal Competition among Regional Governments - Tax Competition, Expenditure Competition and Externalities -," Public Policy Review, Policy Research Institute, Ministry of Finance Japan, vol. 6(1), pages 1-30, February.
    17. Albert N. Honlonkou & Rashid M. Hassan, 2015. "Developing Countries' Response To The Clean Development Mechanism Under Imperfect Information And Transaction Costs," Climate Change Economics (CCE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 6(01), pages 1-22.
    18. Wolfgang Buchholz & Wolfgang Peters, 2001. "The overprovision anomaly of private public good supply," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 74(1), pages 63-78, February.
    19. Todd Sandler, 2010. "Common-property resources: privatization, centralization, and hybrid arrangements," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 143(3), pages 317-324, June.
    20. al-Nowaihi, Ali & Fraser, Clive D., 2007. "Is the public sector too large in an economy with club goods? A case when consumers differ in both tastes and incomes," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 24(6), pages 1018-1031, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:pophec:v:14:y:2015:i:2:p:129-151. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.