A/HRC/41/54 previously mentioned, civil society actors, including those involved in national and transnational trade unions, human rights advocacy and social movements, are also important in the extractivism economy. Even though entire populations of certain nations and regions are involved in the extractivism economy, the vast majority of such people have no direct control over it. 7. A defining feature of extractivism is that it typically involves the removal of raw materials from territories that were previously colonized, and the processing, sale and consumption of those materials in a global economy that disproportionately benefits nations, transnational corporations and consumers in the global North or so-called developed world. Since the colonial era, territories rich in natural resources have also experienced the most severe forms of underdevelopment, which Walter Rodney has explained is a condition of structural exploitation. 1 The negative consequences, both economic and otherwise, of an abundance of natural resources are often discursively framed as a mysterious resource “curse” or inescapable “paradox”, although in a proper historical perspective, it is clear that the socioeconomic and political devastation that characterizes many resource-rich nations in the global South is the product of a global extractivism economy that is deeply rooted in structural inequality. 8. Poverty and underdevelopment are the predictable result of centuries of economic structuring in which colonial powers have integrated colonial territories and their economies into the global markets under conditions of economic dependency, 2 in collaboration with national elites in the global South and at the expense of the vast majority of their populations. Extractivism, both now and in the past, stands at the centre of this dependency and inequality; it has profound implications for racial justice and equality. It is thus no surprise that the term “extractivism” has been used in general to refer to “the predominance of economic activities that are primarily based on resource extraction and nature valorization without distributive politics”. 3 The term encompasses economic structures and an accumulation strategy “based on the overexploitation of … natural resources, as well as the expansion of capital’s frontiers towards territories previously considered non-productive”.4 9. The political economy of the extractivism economy is complex, as are the regulatory and contractual arrangements that structure it, and differ depending on the resource. While acknowledging this complex political economy, it is beyond the scope of the present report to do more than highlight a select range of discriminatory or exclusionary features of this political economy, with its complex production-sharing agreements, licensing and other contractual regimes. 10. Extractivism is compatible both with conservative politics and the neo-liberal economic policies of transnationalization, deregulation and privatization. 5 It is also compatible with left-leaning politics that advance more progressive social agendas and nationalist economic programmes. As a result, the global extractivism economy should be understood to encompass “neo-extractivism”, which refers to a mode of development that is based on natural resource extraction, although it is pursued by “national governments that use the surplus of revenue from extractive activities to fight poverty and enhance the 1 2 3 4 5 Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (London, Bogle-L’Ouverture Publications, 1972), p. 14. See Adrián Groglopo, “Dependency theories and internal colonialism”, in Social Science in Context – Historical, Sociological, and Global Perspectives, Rickard Danell, Anna Larsson and Per Wisselgren, eds. (Lund, Nordic Academic Press, 2013); and Patrick Bond, “The political economy of Africa and dependency theory”, in Dialogues on Development Volume I: Dependency, Ushehwedu Kufakurinani and others, eds. (New York, Institute for New Economic Thinking, 2017). Ulrich Brand, Kristina Dietz and Miriam Lang, “Neo-extractivism in Latin America – one side of a new phase of global capitalist dynamics”, Ciencia Politica, vol. 11, No. 21, p. 129. Maristella Svampa, “Commodities consensus: neoextractivism and enclosure of the commons in Latin America”, South Atlantic Quarterly, vol. 114, No. 1, p. 66, cited in Brand, Dietz and Lang, “Neoextractivism in Latin America”, p. 129. Brand, Dietz and Lang, “Neo-extractivism in Latin America”, p. 130. 3