Business and International Crimes
The Economies of Conflict - Private
Sector Activities and Armed Conflict
Many of the armed conflicts of recent years have been sustained by economic activities of combatants with access to global markets. Today’s warlords, make use of global financial and commodity markets to transform control over natural resources into war fighting capacity. Under the cover of armed conflict, legally or illegally produced commodities are traded on the legitimate, but highly unregulated, global markets to obtain financial resources, weapons and other materiel needed to sustain the war.
The Economies of Conflict project asks the question, How do certain private sector activities help sustain armed conflict and what can be done about it? NSP commissioned a series of reports from practitioners and researchers with an eye for what has worked – what has not worked – in practice.
Electronic versions of reports, memos and other publications
Economies of Conflict. The Next Generation of Policy Responses. Report of the expert consultation on conflict economies and development. Oslo, 4 November 2003, by Mark Taylor (ed.), Josefine Aaser, Anne Huser and Kathleen Jennings
Corporate Fallout Detectors and Fifth Amendment Capitalists: Corporate Complicity in Human Rights Abuse. Keynote address to the UN Global Compact Learning Forum, 11 December 2003, by Mark Taylor
Commerce or Crime, Regulating Economies of Conflict, by Leiv Lunde and Mark Taylor, with Anne Huser
Security, Development and Economies of Conflict: Problems and Responses, policy brief, by Mark Taylor and Anne Huser
Globalizing Transparency, policy brief, by Jonathan M. Winer
Emerging Conclusions March 2002, by Mark Taylor
Illicit Finance and Global Conflict, by Jonathan M. Winer
The Logs of War, by Global Witness
Dirty Diamonds, by Ian Smillie
Fuelling Conflict, by Philip Swanson
Reports Forthcoming in the Economies of Conflict Series
On 25 March 2002, NSP and International Peace Academy co-organized a
symposium Economic Agendas in Armed Conflict: Defining and Developing
the Role of the UN. The symposium was sponsored by the Government
of Norway, and took place in New York.
Download the agenda, background
paper and the final report for the
symposium.
Background and Primary Source Documents
Links related to the political-economy of war
Media Coverage of Economies of Conflict project
This project has been made possible in part by financial support provided by the Government of Norway.