What to Know
- Resource nationalism is reshaping global mining disputes, as governments increasingly impose taxes, terminate licences, and expropriate assets to capture a greater share of economic benefits.
- The strategic importance of critical minerals has intensified geopolitical competition, making disputes over licensing, trade measures, and supply chain rights more likely.
- International arbitration has become the principal forum for resolving mining disputes, with investor versus state cases reaching a concentration peak in 2025 and showing no signs of slowing down.
The international mining sector is experiencing a recalibration in the nature of disputes mining companies face. While disputes have long been endemic to large-scale extractive projects, recent years have witnessed a shift towards disputes shaped by state conduct, geopolitical competition, and public law considerations. This evolution is most clearly visible in the rising prominence of investor versus state arbitration and the deployment of legal arguments grounded in sovereignty, environmental regulation, and strategic resource control. But its effects are also felt in the commercial sphere.
A convergence of geopolitical pressures including resource competition and regulatory intervention, and the fact that many mining projects are situated in jurisdictions characterised by regulatory volatility and political risk, has led to a concentration of mining arbitrations over the last decade, which peaked in 2025 and is showing no signs that this trend might slow down anytime soon.
In this chapter, we explore a number of the geopolitical factors feeding this trend and the types of disputes arising as a result. With this background, we consider the role of arbitration as the preeminent mechanism for resolving disputes in the mining industry.