BICC has been studying the linkage between natural resources and conflict by conducting research, lobbying and educational work on this issue since the year 2000. Two questions are particularly relevant to BICC's work in this area:

• What factors lead to the fatal link between natural resources and violent conflict?
• What type of natural resource governance can contribute toward peace and development?

The center's research on natural resources and conflict has thus far especially evolved around the role of extractive industries in the ‘war economies’ that feed many violent conflicts around the world. An important focus here is on promoting ‘good resource governance’—that is to say: governing resource extraction so that it does not serve a war economy. 

While the primary responsibility for governing natural resources lies with national governments, ‘governance’ as understood by BICC does not include state agents alone, but also non-state actors such as private companies, civil society organizations and informal traditional authorities. Of particular relevance is the increasingly international scope of governing activities in the field of natural resources. 

BICC is engaged in several research and policy networks concerned with the consequences of natural resource extraction for developing countries.