The resource curse can afflict poor countries that have valuable resources like oil and diamonds. Many of these resource-rich countries are 'cursed' with repressive governments, civil wars, and greater poverty.

The resource curse often results from a failure to enforce property rights: the property rights of each country's citizens in their country's natural resources. This right is widely affirmed in international law, but violated when dictators and civil warriors sell off natural resources without any possible consent from the people. Firms that buy resources from these dictators and civil warriors are therefore receiving stolen goods, and passing those stolen goods on to consumers. Stolen resources may be in your gas tank, your cell phone, your jewelry, or the plastic of your computer right now.

Authoritarianism, civil war, and poverty can result from a failure to enforce the property rights of the poor. The Clean Trade Project works to correct this flaw in global markets by ensuring that all international resource sales follow the most fundamental rule of free trade: respect property rights.

Read more about the resource curse and how it can be stopped:

Policy summaries and debate at Cato Unbound (2,700 words)

Policy summaries at the Policy Innovations website (6,000 words)

'Sudan's Stolen Oil': Christian Science Monitor Op-Ed (660 words)

Academic paper: Full Version (24,000 words - PDF)

Academic paper: Condensed version (Philosophy & Public Affairs) (12.500 words - PDF)