(2004) JLP 50: 71-100
Bishnu Upreti
Abstract
This paper highlights the relationships between resource rights, governance practices and conflict in Nepal. The discussion is focused on policies, strategies, laws and regulations, and decisions and actual governing practices in natural resources. The good governance framework is used as a conceptual basis to analyse the relationships. This framework is for the purpose of this paper consensus oriented, participatory, guided by the rule of law, effective and efficient, accountable and transparent, responsive, equitable and inclusive. Within this framework, the paper examines the role of resource governance in creating or minimising scarcity and conflict in Nepal. It is based on my current research project on ‘livelihood security, environmental security and conflict mitigation’ in Nepal. It highlights power relations, feelings of injustice, mistrust, the intervention of new technologies, contradiction between customary practices and statutory laws as sources of research. Resource conflicts produce both positive and negative consequences and alter existing social relations, as they induce change in resource management regimes, policy process, livelihood strategies, land use patterns, gender relations, power structures, and individual and collective behaviour. This paper also establishes the linkages between resource conflict and the ongoing Maoist insurgency in Nepal.