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Sustainable development and total breakdown of the State are two possible outcomes either of which may characterise the exploitation and management of Africa's natural resources depending on framework conditions. Thus, well functioning legal and institutional frameworks for oil exploitation and oil revenue management is very necessary for the sustainable development of developing economies. However, dysfunctional legal and institutional systems are also to blame for many of Africa's resource curse and conflicts. To ensure a well functioning legal and institutional frameworks for the exploitation and management of Ghana's oil, this work argues for a legal and institutional separation of the State's commercial functions from the State's regulatory functions. Theoretically, State sovereignty over natural resources is juxtaposed with the doctrine of separation of powers to create a fourth institutional veto player in natural resource governance.
About the author
Rowland Atta-Kesson is a Ghanaian lawyer, and a legal consultant at the African Development Bank Group (AfDB) in Abidjan, la Cote d'Ivoire. He holds a Master of Laws (LLM) degree in International and Comparative Law from the Indiana University School of Law, Indianapolis USA.
