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Short abstract:

Known as a “mining country” in commodity markets, Peru has gone through different legal frameworks of mineral extraction since the mid-20th century. This paper describes how the assetization of mineral matter oscillated between privileging state ownership or foreign direct investment.

Long abstract:

Known as a “mining country” in commodity markets, Peru has gone through different legal frameworks of mineral extraction since the mid-20th century. The dictatorship of Manuel Odría created favorable conditions for foreign corporations through the Mining Code of 1950. After some mild reformism, a left-wing dictatorship came to power in 1968 and changed the mining framework to favor sovereign interests. This orientation of state-led development was later reflected in the Constitution of 1979 which established that the state should stimulate mining activity. This changed once again during the authoritarian regime of Alberto Fujimori in the nineties. The Constitution of 1993 erased any special treatment to mining activity at a constitutional level and determined that the state should follow a principle of subsidiarity, becoming involved in business activities only exceptionally.

In this paper, I take this sequence of historical episodes as an example of the ways in which the “operations of the law” contribute to the transformation of mineral matter into resources and assets. The continuous changes in this case illustrate how legal frameworks enable the transition of matter between imperium and dominium – the realms of sovereignty and property, respectively. In this sense, I understand the construction of scenarios for the creation of sources of future streams of revenue as a process of institutional design that necessarily requires state action. I pay attention to the reasoning of the political actors behind each of these regimes of assetization of mineral matter, and how they attempted to safeguard what they designed.