Reimagining Mineral Law Teaching and Practice for the 21st Century: Insights from Ibero-America

By Ana Elizabeth Bastida, University of Dundee, UK, and President, REDMIN

[This is a slightly modified English version of the Blog La Enseñanza del Derecho para la Minería en Iberoamérica-Reflexiones desde el webinar REDMIN]

 

On 9 October 2025, the Latin American Network on Mineral Law (REDMIN) hosted the webinar “Teaching Mineral Law in Ibero-America.” The event gathered members of REDMIN’s Governing Council to reflect on current challenges in legal education and professional practice in mineral law.

The discussion revealed a discipline in transformation -shaped by the energy transition, the imperatives of sustainability, and the growing centrality of social and environmental dimensions in the public and legal debate on mining.

At the academic level, participants emphasized the need for more integrated and interdisciplinary approaches that connect law with economics, technology, and environmental sciences. From a professional practice perspective, speakers underlined that today’s mining lawyer must understand not only the law but also the industry. Taken together, the contributions outlined a professional profile capable of translating the sector’s complexity into sustainable and socially legitimate legal solutions.

1. A Discipline in Transformation

Professor Milton Fernando Montoya (Colombia) recalled that Mineral Law was traditionally taught as a subfield of Administrative or Property Law. In Colombia, it remains an elective at undergraduate level, though it has gained ground in postgraduate and specialization programs. This trend, he noted, is closely linked to environmental and energy-transition themes that engage new generations of students.

From Mexico, Jorge Witker situated the debate in a context marked by the mining sector’s historical dominance, which -paradoxically- has limited legal reflection on its regulation. He observed that Mineral Law is consolidating within doctoral programs addressing intersections between mining concessions, international economic law, and investment policy. Trade agreements and arbitration cases have opened fertile ground for research by revealing tensions between constitutional social and environmental rights and investor protections. For Witker, Mineral Law today represents a field of convergence among investors, Indigenous and rural communities, environmental advocates, and local governments. Land-use disputes, he noted, mirror Latin America’s most acute environmental conflicts and call for a critical and plural academic response.

Professor Diego San Martín Villaverde (Peru) argued that teaching must evolve from an extraction-centred approach toward one focused on sustainability.

“It is no longer just about studying concessions, exploration or exploitation,” he said, “but about regulating, preventing and building social trust around mining activity”.

He advocated for legal clinics on mining issues to engage students in real cases involving negotiation, territorial conflicts, and environmental licensing -thus shifting legal education from descriptive to strategic and practice-based learning.

From Venezuela, Mauricio Pernía Reyes offered a forward-looking perspective. He explained that, while only one university currently teaches Mineral Law at undergraduate level, new postgraduate initiatives are emerging. He called for a contemporary Mineral Law that combines classical legal dogmatics with human rights, corporate responsibility, international mining-energy law, and technological innovation. The energy transition, he noted, offers a historic opportunity to renew the discipline and its teaching.

Professor Tiago de Mattos (Brazil) discussed the implications of the “new mining constitutionalism.”

“The mining lawyer can no longer limit their expertise to technical regulation,” he argued. “They must interpret the tensions between economic development, territorial rights, environmental justice, and legal certainty.”

He urged curricular reform integrating Constitutional, Environmental, and Natural Resources Law; experiential learning methods; and Ibero-American academic networks for case and knowledge exchange. Only then, he concluded, can mineral law education support fairer and more transparent resource governance.

2. The European Perspective: Dialogue Between Spain and Latin America

Professors Encarnación Montoya Martín and Íñigo del Guayo (Spain) offered a European perspective, acknowledging the decline of Mineral Law teaching in Spain.

Montoya observed that, even in regions with mining traditions, the discipline has nearly vanished from university curricula. This gap contrasts sharply with the renewed policy focus on critical minerals and the circular economy. She called for a holistic, interdisciplinary approach linking environmental, territorial, and technological dimensions and for renewed academic engagement with the mining sector.

Del Guayo added that, although mining rarely appears in Spanish law degrees, a few master’s programs—such as the Law of Regulated Sectors at Universidad Carlos III and the Energy Law master’s at the Spanish Energy Club—now include modules on mining and critical raw materials for the energy transition.

“If in the past Spain brought its Mineral Law to the Americas,” he remarked, “today it is our turn to learn from Latin American experience.”

3. Professional Practice and the Role of the Mining Lawyer

The second panel examined the changing nature of professional practice.
Rafael Vergara (Chile) stressed that mining lawyers must understand the industry’s technical language, economic logic, and technological evolution. He identified five key dimensions: knowledge of the mining business; familiarity with its culture and terminology; risk and timing management; coordination across multiple legal areas (environmental, water, financial, and corporate); and awareness of the sector’s political and social implications.

“The only certainty a miner can have,” he observed, “is the legal certainty that well-drafted laws and contracts provide.”

Florencia Heredia (Argentina) expanded on these ideas, emphasizing the political and federal complexity of Argentine Mineral Law, where overlapping national and provincial jurisdictions demand strong constitutional and comparative grounding. She reminded participants that mining must be viewed as public policy, closely tied to sustainable development and territorial governance.

From Ecuador, Paola Bermúdez suggested understanding the lawyer’s work as an evolving process that follows the life cycle of a mining project—from due diligence to closure. She highlighted the lawyer’s roles as strategist, regulatory manager, and negotiator, able to translate technical and social complexity into workable legal solutions through interdisciplinary communication.

Synthesis and Reflections

In closing, several themes emerged clearly from the exchange.

Mineral Law remains underrepresented in legal education, yet postgraduate programs are expanding and becoming more specialized. This growth reflects professionals’ desire to understand mining through broader, interdisciplinary, and sustainability-oriented perspectives.

The field itself is dynamic and strategic, positioned at the intersection of major economic, social, environmental, and energy challenges that engage both Latin America and Europe. Its teaching and study require systemic approaches integrating law, economics, technology, and the social and environmental sciences, while fostering collaborative problem-solving.

Panellists agreed that professional training must cultivate lawyers who are ethically grounded, industry-aware, and capable of navigating complex, multi-stakeholder environments involving companies, governments, communities, and civil society.

Finally, universities and academic networks must renew their role: updating curricula, expanding applied and doctoral research, and connecting classrooms with territories and public policy. In this regard, Ibero-American dialogue stands out as an essential platform for sharing methodologies and advancing a joint agenda for academic and professional cooperation.

Looking ahead, this conversation provides a valuable foundation for new collaborative initiatives aimed at strengthening Mineral Law across Ibero-America (and beyond). Ultimately, understanding Mineral Law in the twenty-first century demands a truly global perspective—one that recognizes the interdependence of international, national, and local legal orders and the diversity of actors involved in resource governance. Integrating environmental sustainability, social equity, and economic development within coherent regulatory frameworks is essential to advancing the goals of sustainability.

Building this discipline cannot be an individual or isolated effort; it is, by nature, a collective and collaborative enterprise. It requires academic and professional networks that bridge regions, languages, and legal traditions—connecting theory with practice, classroom with territory, and local realities with global frameworks. Through such cooperation, we can move toward a more integrated, plural, and socially responsive Mineral Law.

Members of RedMin’s Governing Council who served as Panellists

Ana Elizabeth Bastida, Associate Professor, University of Dundee, Scotland, and Academic Council Member, Masters in Mining Business Management, Catholic University of Cuyo, San Juan, Argentina (Panel moderator).

Paola Bermúdez, Partner, Tesserae Bureau, Quito

Íñigo del Guayo, Chair of Administrative Law, University of Almería

Tiago de Mattos, Partner, William Freire Abogados, Minas Gerais, and President, Brazilian Institute of Mining Law

Florencia Heredia, Partner, Allende & Brea, Buenos Aires

Encarnación Montoya, Chair of Administrative Law, University of Seville

Milton Montoya, Director, Department of Mining-Energy Law, University Externado de Colombia

Mauricio Pernía Reyes, Professor, Catholic University of Táchira

Diego San Martín, Professor, Pontifical Catholic University of Perú and University of Lima, and Mining Law Area Director, Caro & Asociados

Rafael Vergara, Partner, Carey Abogados, Santiago de Chile and Professor of Mining Law, University of Chile and University of the Andes 

Jorge Witker, Professor, Institute of Legal Research, National Autonomous University of Mexico