Stop the Trade in Stolen Natural Resources
Oil, natural gas, diamonds and other
valuable resources can be a curse. Struggles over resource revenues have left many resource-rich countries ravaged by despots,
corruption, civil wars and severe poverty. Among the countries afflicted by 'the resource curse' have been Sudan, Burma, Sierra
Leone, Cambodia, Angola, Nigeria, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The resource curse often results from a failure
to enforce human rights: the rights of citizens to control their country's natural resources. This right is violated when
authoritarians and civil warriors rip natural resources from a country by force and sell these resources on the global market.
Stolen resources may be in your gas tank, your laptop, your cell phone, your jewelry or the plastic of your computer right
now. And the money you paid for these goods may now be in the hands of the most ruthless dictators and warlords in the world.
The Clean Trade Project works to stop the trade that sends stolen resources to consumers, and to fight the curses
of authoritarianism, corruption, civil war, and severe poverty. The solutions to the resource curse turn on one basic principle: Might does not not make right.
More on Fighting the Resource Curses
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