Getting a Better Deal from the Extractive Sector—Concession Negotiation in Liberia

Honorable O. Natty B. Davis is minister of state and head of the secretariat of the Liberia Reconstruction and Development Committee. He worked as senior policy advisor and consultant in the Office of the Vice Chairmen of the former National Transitional Government of Liberia (2003–2006). He also worked with UNAIDS, African Comprehensive HIV/AIDS Partnership, UNDP, the EU and ILO in Liberia and Botswana.

He has researched and presented papers on government fiscal and monetary performance, monetary and private sector development in Liberia and enterprise development in Liberia, among other topics. He is former secretary general of the Liberia Chamber of Commerce and is also a member of the Chamber of Commerce in Woodbridge, New Jersey.

Karin Lissakers is director of the Revenue Watch Institute. She has held senior posts in the U.S. government, academia, and several think tanks.

Lissakers was United States executive director on the board of the International Monetary Fund from 1993 to 2001, representing the fund’s largest shareholder during a period of turmoil in international markets and a U.S.-led campaign to redesign the international financial architecture and reform the IMF, including opening its policies and practices to public scrutiny. Lissakers served as deputy director of the Policy Planning Staff of the U.S. Department of State and was staff director of the foreign economic policy subcommittee of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, the first woman to hold such a post.

Peter Rosenblum is a professor at Columbia University Law School, where he holds the Lieff, Cabraser clinical professorship in human rights law. He was a human rights officer in Geneva for the office that was a precursor to UN's high commission for human rights, and was also a program director of the International Human Rights Law Group, and a researcher for both Human Rights Watch and the Lawyers' Committee for Human Rights.

He continues to work extensively in Africa, particularly in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where he has also been involved in reviews of resource concession. Rosenblum and the Human Rights Clinic at Columbia University Law school are collaborating with Revenue Watch on a major study of extractive industry contracts.

Jeffrey Wood is a retired partner with Debevoise & Plimpton and an advisor to the International Senior Lawyers Project on mining laws and regulations, procurement law, and related financial management issues. He was involved in ISLP's preparation of a model mining concession agreement.

At Debevoise & Plimpton he specialized in corporate finance and project finance transactions, as well as cross-border financings and other complex domestic and international projects. He has extensive experience with major chapter 11 debt restructurings, including Chrysler in 1980 and Delta Airlines in 2006. He has worked with numerous private equity funds investing in Asia, and private equity fund sponsors in the formation of Asian-focused funds.