Mining Law Committee – From the Editors – October 2026

Dear Committee members,

We are pleased to bring you the current edition of the IBA Mining Law Committee Newsletter. There are a number of articles which we hope will be of interest. We would like to thank everyone who had suggestions and contributions for the newsletter because without your willingness to provide articles and share your insights, our newsletter would not be possible.

We are pleased that there are contributions from authors around the globe. This edition contains a wide range of topics, including: Algeria’s new mining law; the Los Bronces–Andina Alliance; and critical minerals and global governance.

We are also very happy to include the article titled Mapping Energy Transition Mineral Permitting Initiatives, which is about a research project funded by the IBA Special Project Fund. This is an exciting initiative by the research team consisting of Dr Ana Elizabeth Bastida and Doctoral Candidate Jane Wachira (Centre for Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law and Policy, University of Dundee), and Professor Encarnación Montoya and Dr María de los Angeles Fernández Scagliusi (Faculty of Law, Universidad de Sevilla).

We are grateful to all Committee members who promote the newsletter and ask for contributions, and to our Committee Chairs and the IBA Content team. Please feel free to reach out any time to the Editors or anyone on the Committee if you have an article or a contribution you would like to submit to a future newsletter.

We are already preparing our next newsletter which we expect to publish following the IBA Annual Conference in Copenhagen in October 2026.

Kind regards,

Virginia Schweitzer
Fasken, Ottawa

Senior Newsletter Editor, IBA Mining Committee

Xiaofeng Cheng

Jiantian Gongcheng, Beijing

Newsletter Editor, IBA Mining Committee