Understanding the Legal Landscape of Business Disputes in North America

Procedure against conflict diamonds (Smillie, 2005). Mad advocacy groups were out there exposing the shady deals of war-fighting governments and rebel groups, as well as their corporate or government allies (e.g., Global Witness, 1998, 2001; Smillie, Gberie, and Hazleton, 2000). The involvement of companies in war economies also sparked policy efforts on business and human rights, culminating in the adoption of the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights in 2011 (see Ruggie, 2013). One area of research that accompanied these developments was the "mad web of motives and interactions" that resulted from the mix of people wanting to keep the civil war going (Berdal & Malone, 2000, p. 2; also see Duffield, 2001). This research was all about violence, you know?

It's as if violence occurs because people plan it and have reasons, such as psychological, political, social, or economic factors (Kalyvas, 2006; Keen, 1998).

Yo, at the heart of this "crazy rationality" are questions like, "What's the point of violence, fam?" and, "What functions does it guarantee?" But how is all of this integrated? "(Keen, 1997, p. 68) periodt."Economic Agendas in Civil Wars, When natural resources became a major issue in a number of African conflicts, the United Nations and the World Bank said, "We gotta change our policy, fam" (Bannon & Collier, 2003; Ballentine & Nitzschke, 2005B; Collier et al., 2003). In the early 2000s, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Sanctions Monitoring Mechanisms released a slew of reports on Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, and Sierra Leone that revealed how exploiting natural resources resulted in widespread human suffering and death. They began calling out governments and businesses involved in war economies, essentially blasting them (e.g., UNSC, 2000). The reports also gave major vibes for new sanctions like commodity or financial sanctions and travel bans (Biersteker & Eckert, 2001; Cortright & Lopez, 2002; Biersteker, Eckert, & Tourinho, 2016), as well as multistakeholder natural resource management schemes like the Kimberley Process. The tea in the critique, however, was all about how the research was conducted. Nathan (2005) states unequivocally that the model has numerous flaws. It's like all the empirical, methodological, and theoretical stuff just makes the results untrustworthy and the conclusions completely unjustified, you know? (p. 2) Klem (2004) states that "indicators are sus and not enough." 

The transition from correlation to "Causation is big AF" (p. 5). A report checking out World Bank research peeped that there is, like, a total absence of a legit conceptual and empirical framework, you know? 

OMG, like the regression analysis of these studies on civil war can't even be used to flex the conclusions they supposedly reach. It's like such a bummer that such an important and lit topic was ruined by a trash execution, you know? (Banerjee,

Deaton, Lustig, and Rogoff (2006), p. 64) periodt. A major problem was the tea on conflict zones, which caused the fact that they straight up forgot to include 34 cases out of 113 in the earlier models, and then they straight up forgot about 27 out of 79 civil wars in the 2004 revision. like, how could they miss that? smh. These omissions totally messed up the validity of the findings of the research produced up until the mid-2000s (Fearon, 2005, p. 485; Fearon & Laitin, 2003, p. 76). OMG, looking back, the "greed and grievance" research following Collier and Hoeffler's 1998 article, and how people reacted to it, is like a total pendulum swing, as Zartman (2005) described it! The pendulum swings from one side to the other, often unnoticed as the debate moves on (p.). Potential explanations emerge and gain clout in the scholarly world, attracting both hardcore believers and debunkers, until a new idea emerges and the whole vibe shifts. That middle ground became like, understanding how economic factors play a role in conflicts, you know? Like, in specific conflicts, there's this whole thing about how they interact with like, socioeconomic and political grievances, interethnic disputes, and security dilemmas, and how they can trigger warfare, you feel me? (Arnson & Zartman, 2005; Ballentine & Sherman, 2003) (Ballentine, 2003, pp. 259-260). Much of the initial determinism of the greed and grievance discussionGreed and grievance should not be viewed as incompatible, fam.

Explanations for conflict are frequently shades of the same problem" (Bannon, 2003, p. xi). 

Work using anthropological methods also contributed to a more contextual understanding of conflict by delving into human stories (Nordstrom, 2004; Rodgers, 2009; Uvin, 2009). OMG, looking back, the whole greed and grievance debate has completely debunked those one-factor explanations for why conflicts turn violent. It's all about analyzing the economic side of things in the global political economy, not just basic economics. Lit!Conclusion This review has focused on a body of literature that investigates how economic issues and interests shape the dynamics associated with violent conflict after the Cold War. The article distinguished between an area of research focusing on civil wars and an area of research focusing on other types of violent conflict. In order to complement existing reviews that focus on economics and formal models, the article focused on the literature in these areas of research from political science, sociology, and anthropology. This research emphasizes the role of informal systems behind power, profits, and violence and the economic interests and functions underlying violent conflict. By extending the boundaries of the literature beyond the study of civil wars, this article has emphasized how political economy research can serve as an analytical lens to better understand different types of violent conflict as they evolve over time. Within a context of rapidly changing strategic landscapes, this lens will remain important for understanding conflict dynamics and for informing relevant policy responses.