Background

The critical raw materials (CRMs) essential for driving the global green transition are now at the forefront of geopolitical debates. Governments in the US, China and the EU are seeking to maintain or increase access to CRMs to feed production of green technologies using increased subsidies, leading to trade fragmentation and geopolitical rivalry. Meanwhile, countries in the Global South that possess critical raw materials increasingly seek ways to promote local value addition, leading them to adopt measures of ‘resource nationalism’ including export restrictions and other local content measures. 

It also raises questions around the contribution of multilateral trade rules towards CRM-led industrialisation. The perceived inadequacies of these rules, and the changing global context has seen a rise in new international arrangements in the form of memoranda of understandings, “strategic partnership agreements” or “critical minerals agreements”.

This seminar will discuss the above issues with presentations of two recent papers:  

1. Resource nationalism in the age of green industrialisation by Poorva Karkare of ECDPM

2. The Relationship between Critical Raw Materials, the WTO and ‘Strategic’ Partnerships - A Stacked Deck that Keeps Getting Higher by Sunayana Sasmal of the UK Trade Policy Observatory, University of Sussex 

The two presentations will be followed by a discussion with external panelists on implications for African industrialisation and the EU's imperative for CRM supply chain security and a Q&A session.

Speakers

Poorva Karkare, ECDPM
Sunayana Sasmal, UK Trade Policy Observatory (UKTPO)
Junior Lodge, Secretariat of the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS)
Peter Handley, former Head of Energy Intensive Industries and Raw Materials, DG GROW, European Commission

Moderator

Bruce Byiers, ECDPM

Agenda

11:00-11:05  Welcome remarks 

11:05-11:30  Presentation of the two papers

11:30-12:15  Discussion with panelists

12:15-12:30  Q&A