Critical Minerals and the Changing Political Economy of Benefit Sharing

As demand for critical minerals intensifies, familiar patterns of extraction are being recast through promises of clean energy and technological transformation. This conversation explored what is changing, what endures, and whether benefit sharing canreshape the unequal relations through which wealth is produced and distributed. The panel consisted of Christoper Gevers (Associate Professor, Wits School of Law; Director, Centre for Applied Legal Studies), Christopher Rutledge (Executive Director, Mining Affected Communities United in Action (MACUA), and Charles Roche (Sustainability Lecturer, Murdoch University; Executive Director, Minerals Policy Institute). This conversation forms part of the larger project Sharing the Benefits: Critical Minerals, Data Centres, Local Communities that brings together researchers, public officials, civil society organisations and communities to explore how the benefits and burdens of the green and digital transitions can be shared more fairly. Through an online international dialogue series and an in-person local government workshop in Melbourne, the project creates a space to compare experiences, identify emerging practices and build a longer-term research and policy network. Sharing the Benefits is a collaboration between Luis Eslava (La Trobe University), Caitlin Murphy (RMIT) and André Dao (University of Melbourne), and is supported by the Laureate Program on Global Corporations and International Law at the Melbourne Law School and BHRIGHT at RMIT.