The Commodity Sector and Related Governance Challenges from a Sustainable Development Perspective: The Example of Switzerland

Switzerland has a long history of involvement in commodity trading. In recent years, the Swiss commodity sector has come under increasing scrutiny, mainly because of the substantial growth experienced by global commodity trade since 2002 and the importance of Switzerland as a leading international commodity trading hub. These developments have put commodity trading squarely on the agenda of Swiss institutions and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
The paper is organized in the following sections:
Section 1 gives an overview of the Swiss commodity sector. It illustrates the driving factors that contributed to making Switzerland a leading international commodity trading hub, and describes the structure of the sector in the country.
Section 2 gives an account of the literature on the impacts of commodity investment and trading in both host (resourcerich) countries and home countries (and Switzerland in particular).
Section 3 identifies and discusses positive and negative socio-economic (i.e. livelihood), environmental and governance-related impacts resulting from both soft and hard commodity production in commodity-dependent developing countries (CDDCs) where Swiss-based companies operate based on existing research.
Section 4 provides an overview of hard law instruments and soft law initiatives aimed at mitigating or preventing the occurrence of negative impacts on human rights and on the environment of relevance for the commodity sector.
Main knowledge gaps and areas of interest for future academic research will be identified at the end of each section.