From Antagonists to Mediators

How Global Resource Trading Could Change the Position of NSAGs

Author

Affiliation

Giacomo Butte

MSF

This essay was produced as course work for the course in Humanitarian Leadership within the LEAP program

Introduction

The world security scenario has been changing drastically in recent decades. The typology of conflicts shifted from inter-state to intra-state. Meanwhile, the respect for Internation Humanitarian Law seems to be decreasing even among State actors (SA) that use to promote it. After decades of free-market ideology, several SA are returning on positions that support short term national interests, proposing “trading-blocks” (Meadway, 2026) to facilitate the supply of material resources that are essential in key sectors such as energy and telecommunication (APRI, 2025; Brew, 2026; EU, 2026). Within this fragmentation and weakening of the global governance architecture, Non-State Armed Actors (NSAG) are shifting from an antagonistic to a mediating position.

This essay aims at challenging existing frameworks on conflict analysis by showing that NSAG, by getting access to natural resources and connections to global markets, can play a role in a “shadow global economy”. To do so, they do not need to be in opposition of state-actors (SA) but may prefer hybridisation with the existing power structure. Their behaviours are likely to shift from antagonistic violence to practice of governance, partnership and internationalisation. This has several implications: the theoretical dichotomy state-rebel in not able to entail the complexity of this new condition; the earlier conceptualisation of NSAG as greedy violent actors need to be reframed by considering hybrid practices, governance efforts and intermediary roles. Lastly, this increased ambiguity between roles and borders coupled with an increase in global connectivity put into crisis the fundamental categories of intrastate and interstate for defining conflicts.

To investigate this phenomenon, the essay is structure into four parts: the first one explores how earlier conceptualisations of NSAG could be reframed, the second one looks at how the relationship between resources and conflicts should expanded in the current conflict dynamic. The third section looks at case studies that show how NSAG are navigating this new landscape. Lasty, the fourth section suggests possible implications at research and practical level.

NSAGs: the inconvenient stakeholders

Earlier conceptualization of NSAG was defined around the idea of armed groups, outside control of the state, willing to use force to achieve their objectives. They fight was motivated by the desire to gain rights, as protest, for recognition or even aiming at state substitution (Berti, 2016). Their position was considered as a disturbance of the Westphalian order where recognised sovereign states would be the only holder of power. Early definitions of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) mirrored this understanding: NSAGs were recognised to have obligations only in the 1949 Geneva convention with a subsequent expansion in 1977. Despite the general resistance of SAs in negotiating their position as unique power holders, NSAGs are being recognised as stakeholders with increasing importance (Grävingholt, Hofmann and Klingebiel, 2007) whose rights and duties are still to be determined (Kleczkowska, 2020). The presence of NSAGs has been changing during the last decades favoured by an increased fragility amongst SAs. As per 2025, ICRC estimates that around 383 NSAGs are operating in 60 countries, with around 204 million people living in territories controlled by them (ICRC, 2025). NSAGs can include rebels that seek “liberation”, militias that protect government interests or defend a particular group in society, clan chiefs that are the local authorities, warlords, terrorists, criminals, mercenaries and marauders. Despite differences, some trends are common among these groups are such as violence towards civilians, transnationalisation via cooperation with groups from other countries and a shift from hierarchical to network structures (Schneckener, 2009).

This tendency towards intra-state conflict internationalisation mirrors the increased globalisation of the world. NSAGs collaborate in different ways with external actors: sometimes they act as proxies in different types of activities that can range from military operations to intelligence gathering, to sabotage (Rauta, 2020). These possibilities create a broad spectrum of possible relations between SAs and NSAGs characterised by different degree of autonomy, scope, methods (European Commission. Joint Research Centre., 2021; Jokinen and Normark, 2022). NSAGs are appealing to SAs because they can offer deniability and reduced accountability. On the other hand, NSAGs are interested in these relations in seek of support for their operations. Since World War II, 60% of NSAGs were found to have received support from external actors (San-Akca, 2016). Support can be direct (safe haven, funds, troops, logistic aid) as well as indirect (political support, trade activities, fundraising). Sale of primary commodities is a particularly desirable stream of revenue for NSAGs (Le Billon, 2013) due to high transactions, high demand, usually low infrastructural requirements and in many cases availability within the controlled territories. Additionally, due to its complexity this market prone to opaque practices, bribery. This phenomenon will be explored more in following section to shed light on new dynamics of interactions between NSAG and other public and private actors.

Primary commodities as the playing field for the global arena

The relationship between the environment and conflicts has been widely studied since the 1987 Brundtland Report (Dresse et al., 2019). Initially, studies have looked at the control over environmental resources as a possible cause of conflict. More recent literature has expanded the investigation by including the impact of war on the environment from an ecological perspective (Levy and Sidel, 2016; White and Désoulières, 2017; Durham and Pizzino, 2019; Kotsis, 2024) as well as from peacebuilding perspective (Anderson and Olson, 2012; Brooke and Matthew, 2016; Dresse et al., 2019; Ide, 2020; ECCP, 2022) and climate change (Buhaug and Von Uexkull, 2021). These new approaches were also embraced by the International Law (Stahn, Iverson and Easterday, 2017; de La Bourdonnaye, 2020; Stepputat and Munive, 2022; Minkova, 2023; Palarczyk, 2023) producing new concepts such as ecocide (Eichler, 2020; Wirtu and Abdela, 2025). This wide literature and debate on the linkages between resources and conflict was effectively summarised by Le Billion (2014) as falling into three mechanisms: resources can have an institutional weakening effect, a motivational effect and an opportunity effect by financing hostilities. Given the purpose of this essay, the two linkages that is worth investigating further are causal (resources to conflict onset) and financing mechanism what Le Billon calls resource conflict and conflict resources.

Resource conflicts were initially framed in respect to resource scarcity and resource abundance. The emphasis on scarcity has been losing popularity given the lack of empirical evidence in its support (Koubi et al., 2014) apart from agricultural land scarcity. Interestingly, scarcity of vital resources such as water seems to reduce the odds of violence (Vesco et al., 2020). On the contrary, the abundance argument has been gaining interest due to a more robust set of empirical findings. This approach identifies a direct mechanism that sees resources as easily accruable rents that attracts interest from local actors (Collier, 1999; Collier and Hoeffler, 2005) both SA and NSAG. This ease of access to a source of income often generates a distortion in the economy that start over relaying on a single sector (Dutch Disease) and that develops a shadow economy based on corruption, patronage that ultimately weakens institutions (Auty and Gelb, 2004).

For this study, what is relevant to notice is that conflict resources were generally conceptualised as a stationary stock over which SA and NSAG could take control. These approaches were short on two important aspects: access and variability over time. A more recent stream of investigations explored the relationships between minority groups, NSAG, access to resource by using geolocated data (Fearon and Laitin, 2003; Buhaug and Rød, 2006; Cuvelier, Vlassenroot and Olin, 2013). Reported findings showed that geographical asymmetries in power sharing matters (Buhaug, Cederman and Rød, 2008) as well as the position and access of resources in relation to NSAG. Lujala et al. (2010) found that presence of gemstone and hydrocarbons within the territory controlled by NSAG increased the duration of a conflict by several folds. On the contrary, the presence of production facilities did not have any impact. Maystadt et al. (2014) found that mining concession in DRC created a displacement of violence in nearby territories due to the need of having a buffer zone around the extraction point that can ensure operation and trading. Berman et al. (2017) found that the seizure of point-resource location can increase the likelihood of fighting activities nearby. These studies not only underline the importance of geographical unit of observation but also stress the importance of the relationship between resources and NSAG. To be effective, resource need to be in control and surrounded by a condition of relative stability that ensures their extraction and trade.

The second shortcoming of earlier studies on resource and conflict was related to the assumption of commodities being static (Estancona, 2021). This is detrimental because it does not fully appreciate the importance of market fluctuation impact. Evidence shows that the trade sector usually remains the main contributor to GDP in fragile states (Calì, 2015, p. 13) even during conflicts. Influencing mechanism can be multiple: trade flows can change real income and therefore increase tension between groups while price volatility of resources can affect the greed for control over them. Steep increase of mineral values was estimated to account for 14-25% of average violence in Africa 1997-2010 (Berman et al., 2017) while the presence of multinational firms and their business in a specific territory may contribute to conflict (Sonno 2025).

Within the market-conflict relations, a specific aspect plays an important role in this argument: the possibility of transforming controlled natural resources into revenue to finance conflict. This essay will use the case of mineral extraction and trading to better understand the complex dynamics that place NSAGs in a new role within the global arena. The case of minerals is particularly interesting for different reasons: it is a high-value resource, lootable, usually point-source that, in most cases, does not require sophisticated infrastructure for its extraction. In addition, recent global phenomenon such as the energy transition from carbon, the “trading war” and the interest in using minerals as financial assets as hedges against recent market volatility, has made minerals trading a key activity in the geo-political arena (Gibson, 2023). These changes are creating a shift in demand, disruption on supply chain and therefore and increase of a supply risk that is often described as natural resource scarcity (NRS). This situation can be faced in three ways: by discovery, finding new sources of the same resource, or by substitution, which requires finding a less scarce resource to replace the scarce one. A third way is the possibility of using illicit source of supply (Hilend et al., 2023). It is easy to see how this last pathway can be intrinsically linked to conflict, NSAGs and shadow governance structures of SAs. Before looking at case study that show how NSAGs are navigating these complexities, it is interesting to briefly understand the legal aspects of resource extraction from a NSAG.

From the law of belligerent occupation, the occupying power would be allowed to administer resources under the rules of usufruct. This provision is not guaranteed under International Humanitarian Law making any exploitation of resources illegal. The latest documents on the environment and conflicts (ICRC 2020 Guidelines on the Protection of the Environment in Armed Conflict and International Law Commission in its 2022 Draft Principles on the Protection of the Environment in Relation to Armed Conflicts) did not address the topic explicitly adding ambiguity around NSAG rights and duties (Askary and Hosseinnejad, 2023) and leaving the international law community split amongst those that are in favour and those against the extension of usufruct to NSAG. In line with the objectives of this essay, it is noteworthy that proponents right to usufruct support their position by highlighting the potential role of non-state armed groups (NSAGs) as intermediaries between natural resources and the needs of local populations, thereby justifying their extraction of such resources for this purpose.

NSAG as intermediary of trade

A recent study by Sweet (2021) helps understanding how the issues that have been raised so far play in real conflicts. The study analysed legal and contractual documents from the Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD) during the Second Congo War (1998-2003) to better understand how a NSAG can generate financial revenues by selling resources. The study proposed different mechanisms through which NSAG achieve minerals sale on global markets: legal appropriation of state institutions, exploitation of traceability systems, direct territorial control and taxation, and resource portfolio strategies.

One of the key barriers in minerals trading for non-recognised actors is the need to comply to certifications related to supply chains such as the Dodd-Frank Act (Section 1502). Rebels that are excluded from a recognised status can circumvent this issue via legal appropriation. This mechanism consists in coopting state agencies that are present in conflict zone to manufacture legality. This was found to be a widespread practice in the case study about RCD, in Central African Republic where ex NSAG were operating within the Anti-Fraud Units. These mechanisms of legal fiction benefit firms that have interest in obtaining false certifications and conceal buyers and sellers. For this study, what is interesting to notice is the fact that “Paradoxically, nonstate actors have financial incentives to sustain domestic state institutions, but in ways that weaken central governments” (Sweet, 2021).

Private firms are another important partner in this trade. One of their main concerns is to conceal money trails, obscure buyers and sellers and use false certifications. They operate across transnational networks (Cooley and Sharman, 2017) where NSAGs can occupy an important role. Private companies can use NSAGs to access sites via violent means such as in the case of Kun Ho Mining with Raia Mutomboki in DRC (Genocide watch, 2025). NSAGs can also act as proxies of states in the procurement of resources. The case of M23 in North Kivu is emblematic of this dynamic. The group has gained control over important mining sites, the most prominent being Rubaya, and it believed to be supplying them to Rwanda illegally. Rwanda officially denies any interaction with them leaving this ambiguity as a defence from possible legal action. Lastly, NSAGs can also occupy a position of governing bodies for local communities. As mentioned before in relation to the right of usufruct, this mediating position between resource extraction and the provision of basic services could provide a certain level of legal legitimacy. NSAG could therefore exploit this position by providing to communities (Asal, Flanigan and Szekely, 2022) in exchange of the necessary labour for extraction. In summary, via commodity sales NSAGs can position themselves between different actors and establish different relations in their advantage.

Implications

The situations described so far can have several implications. At research level the well explored topic of conflict and resources could be expanded by including assessments and research on how NSAG access environmental resources and their ability to convert resources to revenue stream (Hazen, 2013). Once revenue streams are ensured, it is likely that NSAGs change their behaviours and start establishing themselves as governors (Sánchez De La Sierra, 2020). This essay supports the idea that with these acquired capacities and resources NSAG should not be seen anymore as violent unorganised groups but rather as possible intermediaries in different domains. NSAGs have shown to be able to go beyond being intra-state antagonist actors and are able to engage in urban economies (Schillinger and Özerol, 2023), networks of trade, accumulation and even network of remittances (Davis, 2009). Evidence shows that they can take a role as governing bodies. This has led scholars and state agencies in considering NSAGs as possible stakeholders in post-conflict activities such as environmental preservation, peacebuilding (Dresse et al., 2019; de La Bourdonnaye, 2020; Cunningham et al., 2025; Gilmore et al., 2025) and development (Grävingholt, Hofmann and Klingebiel, 2007).

As shown in the examples, substitution of SA or independence is not necessarily an aim. NSAGs can strive through a series of relations with SAs, private sector and other NSAGs. They can exploit hybrid forms of governance. This possibility is interpreted in different ways by scholars: some see it as a positive evolution in governance (Boege, Brown and Clements, 2009; Crook and Booth, 2011) while others see it as an erosion of formal institutions or a s variable that is context dependent (Cuvelier, Vlassenroot and Olin, 2013). It could be argued that in a globalised world the “state capital” is not the horizon for NSAGs but rather the access to a whole new set of commercial, criminal network. Several of the dynamics presented so far seem to indicate the crisis of the both of the Westphalian (Davis, 2009) and the global liberal project: the possibility of creating a global market where SAs could trade within the respect of a certain set of rules. With an increased interconnection between actors and places it is perhaps necessary to reflect if the notions of intra and inter state conflict still are relevant. In the Westphalian order SAs were the sole legitimate power holders but also those who were accountable to internation Law. Today, with a continued disrespect of IL and with a plethora of actors that are using violence and other type of power for their objectives, it can be questioned where and how blurry the boundary between SAs and NSAGs is.

Conclusion

This essay took into consideration how the changing dynamics around armed conflicts and global governance are shaping the relationship between conflicts and natural resources. The hypothesis suggested is that NSAG through control of resources, and access to markets via illicit pathways can secure stable revenue streams. This position of financial security enables them to shift role: from antagonist to the state to proxy, from rebels to governors. In particular, the case of primary commodity trading places NSAGs in a position of mediator between SAs seeking securitisation of supply chain, firms searching profit and communities looking for livelihood. These conditions call a new reflection on how to deal, negotiate and limit NSAGs.

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