Introduction: international economic law, natural resources and sustainable development

The papers in this special issue of the 'International Journal of Law in Context' have been selected from papers presented at a Workshop on International Law, Natural held at the Warwick Law School in September 2013. The objective of the Workshop was to consider national and international approaches to the regulation of natural resources in developing countries and the impact of such approaches on sustainable development and on the evolution of international law. The conflicting interests between importers and exporters of natural resources have been at the forefront of disputes between developing and developed countries. Meanwhile, tensions between the economic drivers of natural resource exploitation and the ecological imperatives of resource conservation have long structured international relations and relations between states and civil society. Divergent policies on natural resources have also been the source of interminable debates among international lawyers, international organisations and development specialists.