Mining and energy law

This text is an ideal starting point to understand the regulatory regimes and policy challenges relevant to Australia's mining sector.

Stakeholder and gender characteristics of mining and energy IPO boards of directors

The mining and energy sectors are particularly publicly sensitive sectors and subject to a high degree of public scrutiny. Evan and Freeman (1993) suggest that such public scrutiny needs may be better met by having direct public stakeholder representation on the board of directors. Similarly, Bilimoria (2000) argues a strong commercial case for engaging women on boards. This paper investigates the number and proportion of non equity holding public stakeholder directors and the number and proportion of women directors on the boards of Australian mining and energy company initial public offerings (IPOs) and reports a paucity of public stakeholder directors and also a low proportional female representation on such IPO boards.

Exodus of 'mineral rights' from the South African Mineral Law

Transformation of the mineral law system as part of the new political  dispensation in South Africa has long been foreseen. Subsequent to a Green and White Paper, as policy documents, the Department of Minerals and Energy published a Mineral Development Draft 8il12000 for public comment. This eventually culminated in the acceptance by Parliament of the Minerals and Petroleum Resources Development Act 28 of 2002, which came into operation on 1 May 2004. The Act will transform thE! mineral law system and the mining industry in" general. In this article the phaSing-out by the Act of the historical notion of 'mineral right' is examined. It is argue..d that the Act will lead to an exodus of the notion of mineral rights and will replace It with less secure prospecting rights and mining rights which, albeit real in nature, will depend on compliance with provisions of the Act and the exercise of discre.Von by the Minister.

Mineral law and the doctrine of rights : a microscope of magnification?

The doctrine of rights has become part of private law jurisprudence. In this article the application of the doctrine in two decisions dealing with surface support in mineral law is examined. It is argued that the decision of Kriegler J in Elektrisiteitsvoorsieningskommissie v Fourie, namely, that the right to surface support is an entitlement, is more correct than Anglo Operations Ltd v Sandhurst Estates (Pty) Ltd in which it was decided that the right to surface support is a competence. It is submitted that depending on the legal location of the entitlement in the relationship between owner and miner of land one may simply refer to either an owner's entitlement to surface support or a miner's entitlement to undertake opencast-cast mining.

What do indigenous communities think of the CSR practices of mining companies?

This paper examines how one indigenous community in the Western Province of Papua New Guinea (PNG) views the social responsibility initiatives of OK Tedi Mining Ltd (OTML). This mining operation has been controversial since its inception, and various operators of the mine have sought to engage the community and to undertake a number of CSR-related projects. Insights gained from four focus groups amongst the Ok Tedi River indigenous communities show that while some members of the community are satisfied with the company’s efforts at the macro level, many have reservations about the effectiveness of the programs at the micro level on the village and family unit. The implementation of CSR activities are slow and in many instances do not effectively address stakeholder concerns.

Identifying emerging hotel preferences using emerging pattern mining technique

Hotel managers continue to find ways to understand traveler preferences, with the aim of improving their strategic planning, marketing, and product development. Traveler preference is unpredictable for example, hotel guests used to prefer having a telephone in the room, but now favor fast Internet connection. Changes in preference influence the performance of hotel businesses, thus creating the need to identify and address the demands of their guests. Most existing studies focus on current demand attributes and not on emerging ones. Thus, hotel managers may find it difficult to make appropriate decisions in response to changes in travelers' concerns. To address these challenges, this paper adopts Emerging Pattern Mining technique to identify emergent hotel features of interest to international travelers. Data are derived from 118,000 records of online reviews. The methods and findings can help hotel managers gain insights into travelers' interests, enabling the former to gain a better understanding of the rapid changes in tourist preferences.

Personality differences and hotel web design study using targeted positive and negative association rule mining

As people have unique tastes, the way to satisfy a small group of targeted customers or to be generic to meet most people's preference has been a traditional question to many fashion designers and website developers. This study examined the relationship between individuals' personality differences and their web design preferences. Each individual's personality is represented by a combination of five traits, and 15 website design-related features are considered to test the users' preference. We introduced a data mining technique called targeted positive and negative association rule mining to analyze a dataset containing the survey results collected from undergraduate students. The results of this study not only suggest the importance of providing specific designs to attract individual customers, but also provide valuable input on the Big Five personality traits in their entirety.

Knowledge, spirit, law: book 1: radical scholarship

Knowledge, Spirit, Law is a de facto phenomenology of scholarship in the age of neoliberal capitalism. The eleven essays (plus Appendices) in Book 1: Radical Scholarship cover topics and circle themes related to the problems and crises specific to neoliberal academia, while proposing creative paths around the various obstructions. The obstructions include metrics-obsessed academia, circular and incestuous peer review, digitalization of research as stalking horse for text- and data-mining, and violation by global corporate fiat of Intellectual Property and the Moral Rights of Authors. These issues, while addressed obliquely in the main text, definitively inform the various proscriptive aspects of the essays and, via the Introduction and Appendices, underscore the necessity of developing new-old means to no obvious end in the production of knowledge — that is to say, a return to forms of non-instrumentalized intellectual inquiry. To be developed in two concurrent volumes, Knowledge, Spirit, Law will serve as a “moving and/or shifting anthology” of new forms of expression in humanistic studies. Book 2: The Anti-Capitalist Sublime will be published in Autumn 2016.