Nigeria and UN on Permanent Sovereignty over Natural Resources: Genesis of Decay

The law regulates identifiable issues of conflict and grapples with them as they emerge or change. Socio-economic relations also change the law along. Therefore, nothing is permanent except change whether sovereignty or natural resources. The ability of the law to change as social relations change is the social engineering nature of law. When the United Nations made the declaration on permanent sovereignty over natural resources in favour of developing states, foreign investments and investors were at risk and it was not envisaged that the peoples of the states and their communities would come to the cross-roads they are currently such that it was not envisaged that the states would act contrary to their utmost interest 60-70 years after. So much want and lack have already been identified with the peoples and their communities. So much lives have equally been lost in the struggle to upturn the resolution not to even converse on the environmental degradation that the scrimmages between the parties have caused to the present and future generation leading for instance to the Stockholm Declaration of 1972 and sustainable development issues. This paper which adopts the doctrinal method takes a critical look at the case of the peoples and communities that make up the developing states which donated their sovereignty to their states for the purpose of realizing the gains inherent in the Chilean proposal that led to the United Nation Organization’s resolution in 1962 and which peoples and communities have now been utterly undermined and shortchanged. Can they now turn around against their states and the multinational companies in an era in which there appears to be a cozier relationship between the state and company than between them and their governments? Evidence from Zimbabwe, Congo, Sudan, Nigeria and Tanzania are not in favour of the state and company. In the Niger delta the crucible of conflict is at boiling point. In a few more decades to come, the table may completely turn - full circle.