Duties in Permanent Sovereignty over Natural Wealth and Resources and Petroleum Development in Nigeria: Need to Domesticate Benchmarked International Standards and Practices in the Country

Abstract

This paper examines the duties of resources-rich developing countries inherent in Permanent Sovereignty over Natural Wealth and Resources (PSNWR) in the context of the laws and other forms of government regulatory frameworks, such as government institutional regulatory frameworks, governing petroleum development in Nigeria. It emphasises the significance of good, dynamic and effective laws, alongside viable, strong and efficient institutions in the governance of major natural resources extractive industrial development operations (EIOs) in Nigeria. It rationalises how and why petroleum and other EIOs regulatory frameworks in Nigeria should be designed and implemented in conformity with widely acknowledged and accepted benchmarked international EIOs regulatory mechanisms, such as guidelines, norms, rules, standards and practices, which are soft law instruments that are increasingly governing EIOs in sovereign states around the globe, in the ongoing era of sustainable development (SD). It recommends a need for domestication of such regulatory mechanisms governing petroleum resources development operations and other EIOs in Nigeria, as doing so would boost good environmental governance and overall government social responsibility, towards robust, efficient and effective accomplishment of the duties of Nigeria embedded in PSNWR, in the course of the resources development operations in the oil-rich Niger Delta region. Doing so would thus boost human wellbeing, good governance and environmentally-sound and socio-economically equitable SD in Nigeria, towards overall public good and all-embracing prosperity in the country.

Keywords: Permanent Sovereignty over Natural Wealth and Resources (PSNWR), Petroleum Development, Extractive Industrial Operations (EIOs), Good Environmental Governance (GEG), Government Social Responsibility (GSR), Good Governance and Sustainable Development (SD).

DOI: 10.7176/JLPG/92-09

Publication date: December 31^st 2019