Mitigating the Resource Curse for Extractive Industry

Abstract

The discovery of gas and oil in the Eastern Mediterranean Basin awaits serious resolutions to the political challenges confronting the process of exploration and extraction. On one hand, the lack of maritime boundary delimitation, with the potential discovery of shared deposits, and the absence of mediation channels may exacerbate regional volatility. On the other hand,deficiency in the managing capacities of extractive resources, which coincides with deep political divisions and absent local consensus regarding the national distribution of revenues and benefits, represents another cause for potential intra-national contentions. This paper describes the regional and domestic challenges and possible repercussions in the prospective development of extractive industry, taking Lebanon as a case study. It entertains various resolutionary scenarios that stimulate cooperative and collective strategies within conflictmitigation frameworks.