The Green Minerals Race & Strategic Resource Nationalism

Presentation

The global surge in demand for critical minerals—lithium, cobalt, nickel, graphite, and rare earths—is reshaping the mining landscape and driving states to tighten export rules, revise mining codes, and mandate local processing as part of energy-transition strategies.
These measures aim to capture more value domestically but introduce regulatory uncertainty, fiscal changes, and resource-nationalism risks that increasingly intersect with investment protections under international treaties.

At the same time, ESG imperatives are transforming contractual dynamics across the supply chain. Offtake agreements and strategic partnerships now embed sustainability-linked obligations, audit rights, and even termination clauses tied to ESG performance, creating new layers of exposure for operators and buyers.

This session will explore how these dual pressures—resource nationalism and ESG compliance—are generating complex disputes and what practical strategies companies can adopt to manage regulatory risk, contractual challenges, and arbitral outcomes in the green-mineral era.