Peacemaking and the Extractive Industries

This book fills gaps in understanding, and proposes much-needed best practice, frameworks, tools and new theory. Companies in most industries can apply this book's ideas to their business and would be very wise to absorb its lessons. -- Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, Chairman, Foundation for the Global Compact and former Chairman of Shell Ralph gives strong and compelling arguments to clarify and position why business engagement should include peacemaking. So far, this has often been disregarded or overlooked. It should be greeted as most welcome. -- Per L. Saxegaard, Founder and Chairman, Business for Peace Foundation This groundbreaking work on the contributions of businesses to peacemaking is comprehensive, insightful and long overdue. All actors working in or on fragile and conflict-affected regions - including representatives from the United Nations, regional organisations, NGOs, businesses, academia and civil society more broadly - would benefit enormously from adapting and incorporating these insights into their work. Corporate peace is indeed an essential part of the complex process of supporting sustainable and inclusive responses to violent conflict. -- Josie Lianna Kaye, Director, TrustWorks Global Natalie Ralph's book is an important and timely contribution to a new and growing field of importance - corporate peacemaking. By blending new theoretical insights with practical case studies, it maps innovative approaches for how business can support the further development of peace within countries at all levels of development. It fills a vital gap in the current business and peacebuilding literature and will have resonance for years to come as the inevitable political and economic dimensions of globalisation can only increase the significance of this idea and field of practice. -- Daniel Hyslop, Research Director, Institute for Economics and Peace A timely addition to the literature on business and peace. This book provides valuable guidance on the potential role of mining and energy sector companies in support of conflict resolution through stakeholder engagement, negotiation and mediation. -- Hrach Gregorian, Ph,D., Director, Institute of World Affairs and Practitioner in Residence, School of International Service, American University The corporate world has remained a largely underexplored actor of the peacemaking scene. Dr Ralph's thorough research is filling this void by providing new data and insights on the private sector's role and potential in conflict resolution. -- Kai Sauer, Ambassador, permanent representative of Finland to the UN This is a timely moment to re-assess the extractive industry's role in peacemaking. The new development goals recently agreed by world leaders offer a comprehensive vision of the future - and one which recognises the devastating impact of conflict on the lives and livelihoods of many of the poorest communities on the planet. If the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are to be met, then business must play its full part, including through efforts to build peace. This is one of the key underlying messages of a new book by Natalie Ralph - 'Peacemaking and the Extractive Industries: Towards a Framework for Corporate Peace'. The book offers a practical and grounded analysis of a role for the extractive industry that goes beyond 'do no harm' and pushes companies to use the full range of their skills and resources to address violence and conflict. This will not prove easy but it is necessary and this book represents an important step forward in the process. -- Nick Killick, co-author 'Local Business, Local Peace' Extractive resource development is often perceived, with good reason, as a contributor to conflict at the national and sub-national level, so it is refreshing to see a study which focuses on the potential for resource companies to also play a positive role in preventing, resolving, or at least mitigating, these conflicts. Peacemaking and the Extractive Industries helps us to view the role of the corporate sector differently and is that all too rare a commodity: a book that is theoretically informed, empirically grounded and accessible to a non-specialist audience. -- Professor David Brereton, Director of People Centres, Sustainable Minerals Institute, The University of Queensland The book comes at a time when corporate interest in peacemaking is developing. It will thus provide a valuable framework both for those companies looking to deepen their engagement as well as for those who are beginning to look at the issue for the first time. This book fills gaps in understanding, and proposes much-needed best practice, frameworks, tools and new theory, as well as highlighting which peacemaking activities are best suited to which situations. Companies in most industries can apply this book's ideas to their business and would be very wise to absorb its lessons before venturing into this highly complex, sometimes controversial, but potentially transformative and rewarding activity. -- Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, Chairman, Foundation for the Global Compact and former Chairman of Shell Natalie Ralph's timely book offers new insights into the role and future potential of extractive industries' involvement in corporate peace making (CPM). Providing a substantial analysis applying social constructivism, discourse analysis and poststructuralism to dominant discourses in business and peace and CR, she proposes politics be 'brought back in' and that responsible investment and business roles in conflict zones need to extend beyond economic peacemaking. Hence her formulation of CPM as a counter-discourse. This thorough and creative treatise , explores the links between corporate responsibility, human rights and CPM. The resulting 14-intervention CPM framework and case studies of CPM will be useful to researchers, activists and corporate innovators who take on a more cosmopolitan approach to the contribution of business to peaceful relations and outcomes - a cosmopolitan corporate peace. -- Prof. Linda Hancock has a personal chair in public policy at Deakin University. Extractive resource development is often perceived, with good reason, as a contributor to conflict at the national and sub-national level, so it is refreshing to see a study that focuses on the potential for resource companies to also play a positive role in preventing, resolving, or at least mitigating, these conflicts. Peacemaking and the Extractive Industries helps us to view the role of the corporate sector differently and is that all too rare a commodity: a book that is theoretically informed, empirically grounded and accessible to a non-specialist audience. -- Professor David Brereton, Director of People Centres Sustainable Minerals Institute, The University of Queensland This is a terrific addition to business and peace literature. Ralph offers a provocative conceptual model and the fact that it derives from extractives, which so often find themselves is conflict-sensitive zones, makes for a great set of practical examples. -- Timothy Fort, Everleigh Chair in Business Ethics, Indiana University The role of business in this field - peace-making rather than just do-no-harm - is of radical importance as we move into a new era of global governance through multipolar institutions. Business is involved in all the trouble spots of the world, from the Middle East to the USA to the Ukraine, and there is a moral responsibility as peacemakers. If not, its leaders should be judged as morally bankrupt. This book is well written, well researched, and enjoyable to read. -- Malcolm McIntosh, former Special Advisor to the UN Global Compact and author of 'Thinking the Twenty-First Century'

This book explores the diplomatic role of corporations in peace processes in intrastate conflict, focusing on transnational extractive corporations but applicable to all industries. Ralph presents a new framework for corporate peacemaking and argues it could be a powerful tool in global governance and peace efforts.