Sunday Bontur Lugard*

ABSTRACT

The Niger Delta region of Nigeria, home to about 30 million people, is one of the world’s most prominent deltas. Petroleum exploration in this region has been ongoing for over fifty years and revenue from this activity is at present the mainstay of the Nigerian economy. Granted that it is impracticable to undertake petroleum operations without some negative impact on the environment, a good deal of this pollution can be mitigated. The International Oil Companies (IOCs) are complacent about pollution reduction to a sustainable level; regulatory agencies are either compromised or lack the required expertise or equipment to monitor and enforce compliance with extant environmental protection laws and regulations. The pursuit of the IOCs’ property right over petroleum resources has set them against the other stakeholders’ right to a healthy environment. The clash of these rights can best be addressed by ascribing “collective property” and not “private property” right to the acreage over which they have been granted licence to prospect for, explore or mine petroleum resources.

Keywords: Property rights, natural resource exploration, environmental law.

Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/jsdlp.v6i2.3

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* Lecturer, Department of International Law and Jurisprudence, Faculty of Law, University of Jos, Nigeria; lugards@unijos.edu.ng.

Adedoyin Akinsulore*

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the effect of legislation on the corporate social responsibility in the minerals and mines sector of the Nigerian economy. Observing that the extractive industry sector in the country is populated by enclave industries that give little priority to CSR, the paper analyses the Nigerian Minerals and Mines Act, 2007. The Act obligates contracting a Community Development Agreement (CDA) between the mineral title holder and the community where the mining company is to operate. Linking CSR and the CDA through the stakeholder theory, the paper observes that corporate actors in the solid minerals sector of the country can no longer deprioritise CSR in their corporate planning as hitherto. It concludes that the effect of this law is to empower the community as an important stakeholder thereby validating the stakeholder thesis herein espoused.

Keywords: Corporate social responsibility (CSR), minerals, mines, agreement, human rights.

doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/jsdlp.v6i2.5

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* Department of Public Law, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria e-mail: adedoyinakinsulore@gmail.com or adakinsulore@oauife.edu.ng