Philippe Le Billon

Geographer, author, and professor at the University of British Columbia

Philippe Le Billon
Alma mater	Oxford University University Paris Pantheon-Sorbonne
Awards	Fulbright Research Chair, UC Berkeley; IAS Scholar, Princeton; International Geneva Award
Scientific career
Fields	political ecology, development studies, geopolitics

Philippe Le Billon is a researcher known for his work in political ecology and on the political economy of war. A Fulbright Research Chair at UC Berkeley^[1] and Scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton,^[2] Le Billon is a professor at the University of British Columbia (UBC) with the Department of Geography and the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs.^[3] He earned an MBA at the Pantheon-Sorbonne University in Paris and a doctorate at the University of Oxford.^[4] Prior to joining UBC he collaborated with the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) and the Overseas Development Institute (ODI).

Contributions

Working on the environment-development-security nexus, he is the (co)author of about one hundred refereed articles and several books,^[5] including on conflict diamonds,^[6] corruption in armed conflicts,^[7] environmental defenders,^[8] extractive industries,^[9] fish crimes,^[10] fossil fuel phase-out initiatives^[11] (e.g. fossil fuel cuts database with Nicolas Gaulin),^[12] and the political economy of natural disasters and armed conflicts.^[13]

Le Billon served on the editorial board of Political Geography and Environment and Security,^[14] the scientific advisory board of Swisspeace,^[15] and the founding board of Environmental Peacebuilding Association.^[16] His academic research in published in journals such as African Affairs, Annals of the AAG, Antipode, Climate Policy, Geopolitics, Global Environmental Change, Political Geography, Review of International Political Economy, and Science Advances.^[17] Some of his research also appeared in AP, CBC,^[18] CCTV, Christian Science Monitor,^[19] The Globe and Mail, Die Zeit,^[20] The Guardian,^[21] Financial Times,^[22] and The Washington Post.^[23] He regularly writes for Policy Options^[24] and The Conversation,^[25] and collaborates with international and non-governmental organizations.^[26]

Notable works

Le Billon, Philippe (2000). Political Economy of War: What Relief Agencies Need to Know. Overseas Development Institute.
Le Billon, Philippe (2001). The Political Ecology of War. Political Geography 20(5): 561–584.
Le Billon, Philippe (2005). Geopolitics of Resource Wars: Resource Dependence, Governance and Violence. London: Frank Cass. ISBN 9780714684970.
Le Billon, Philippe (2013). Wars of Plunder: Conflicts, Profits and the Politics of Resources. London, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780190235673.
Le Billon, Philippe; Bridge, Gavin (2017). Oil (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Polity Press. ISBN 978-1-509-51173-0.
Le Billon, Philippe; Williams, Aled (2017). Corruption, Natural Resources and Development. Edward Elgar. ISBN 978-1785361197.
Le Billon, Philippe; Menton Mary (2021). Environmental Defenders. Deadly Struggles for Life and Territory. London: Routledge. ISBN 9780367649647

References

^ "Philippe Le Billon". live-canada-d8.pantheon.berkeley.edu. Retrieved 2023-01-18.
^ "Philippe Le Billon - Scholars | Institute for Advanced Study". www.ias.edu. 2022-02-03. Retrieved 2023-01-18.
^ "Philippe Le Billon". School of Public Policy and Global Affairs. Retrieved 2023-01-18.
^ "Philippe Le Billon". Department of Geography. Retrieved 2023-01-18.
^ "Philippe Le Billon". scholar.google.ca. Retrieved 2023-01-18.
^ Le Billon, Philippe (2008-04-15). "Diamond Wars? Conflict Diamonds and Geographies of Resource Wars". Annals of the Association of American Geographers. 98 (2): 345–372. doi:10.1080/00045600801922422. ISSN 0004-5608. S2CID 218640059.
^ Le Billon, Philippe (May 2003). "Buying peace or fuelling war: the role of corruption in armed conflicts". Journal of International Development. 15 (4): 413–426. doi:10.1002/jid.993. ISSN 0954-1748.
^ Le Billon, Philippe; Lujala, Päivi (2020-11-01). "Environmental and land defenders: Global patterns and determinants of repression". Global Environmental Change. 65: 102163. doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2020.102163. ISSN 0959-3780. S2CID 225119151.
^ Gamu, J., Le Billon, P., & Spiegel, S. (2015). Extractive industries and poverty: A review of recent findings and linkage mechanisms. The Extractive Industries and Society, 2(1), 162-176. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2014.11.001; Conde, M., & Le Billon, P. (2017). Why do some communities resist mining projects while others do not?. The Extractive Industries and Society, 4(3), 681-697. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2017.04.009
^ Belhabib, Dyhia; Le Billon, Philippe (2022-03-25). "Fish crimes in the global oceans". Science Advances. 8 (12): eabj1927. Bibcode:2022SciA....8J1927B. doi:10.1126/sciadv.abj1927. ISSN 2375-2548. PMC 8942372. PMID 35319979.
^ Gaulin, Nicolas; Le Billon, Philippe (2020-09-13). "Climate change and fossil fuel production cuts: assessing global supply-side constraints and policy implications". Climate Policy. 20 (8): 888–901. Bibcode:2020CliPo..20..888G. doi:10.1080/14693062.2020.1725409. ISSN 1469-3062. S2CID 214511488.
^ "Fossil Fuel Cuts Database". www.fossilfuelcuts.org. Retrieved 2023-01-18.
^ Le Billon, P., & Waizenegger, A. (2007). Peace in the wake of disaster? Secessionist conflicts and the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 32(3), 411-427. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-5661.2007.00257.x; Le Billon, P., Suji, M., Baniya, J., Limbu, B., Paudel, D., Rankin, K., ... & Shneiderman, S. (2020). Disaster financialization: Earthquakes, cashflows and shifting household economies in Nepal. Development and Change, 51(4), 939-969. https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.12603
^ "Environment and Security". SAGE Publications Inc. 2022-04-13. Retrieved 2023-01-18.
^ "Team". swisspeace. Retrieved 2023-01-18.
^ "Environmental Peacebuilding Association Launched to Improve Learning and Action on Environment, Conflict, and Peace | Environmental Law Institute". www.eli.org. Retrieved 2023-01-18.
^ "Philippe Le Billon". scholar.google.ca. Retrieved 2023-01-18.
^ "Philippe Le Billon | CBC". CBC News. 2022-06-04. Archived from the original on 2023-01-14.
^ "Foreign affairs: 23 new books I wish Obama and Romney would read". Christian Science Monitor. ISSN 0882-7729. Retrieved 2023-01-18.
^ "ZEIT ONLINE | Lesen Sie zeit.de mit Werbung oder im PUR-Abo. Sie haben die Wahl". www.zeit.de. Retrieved 2023-01-18.
^ "Revealed: oil giants pay billions less tax in Canada than abroad". the Guardian. 2017-10-26. Retrieved 2023-01-18.
^ "The week in energy: Cold climate talks". Financial Times. 2018-12-15. Retrieved 2023-01-18.
^ "Can ISIS overcome the insurgency resource curse?". The Washington Post. 2014-07-02. Archived from the original on 2022-02-05.
^ "Philippe Le Billon". Policy Options. Retrieved 2023-01-18.
^ "Philippe Le Billon". The Conversation. 20 January 2020. Retrieved 2023-01-18.
^ Le Billon, P. (2011). Extractive sectors and illicit financial flows: What role for revenue governance initiatives?. U4 Issue, 2011(13); https://portals.iucn.org/library/sites/library/files/documents/Policy-Matters-Issue-22-vol3.pdf