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A divided three-judge panel of the US Court of International Trade (CIT), in Slip Op. 26-47 (Court Nos. 26-01472 and 26-01606, decided 7 May 2026), held 2-1 that President Trump's Proclamation 11012 — which imposed a temporary 10% ad-valorem import surcharge under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 — exceeded statutory authority because the proclamation did not identify a "fundamental international payments problem" as defined by the 1974 Congress (the balance-of-trade or current-account deficit relied upon by the government is not the type of balance-of-payments deficit the statute contemplates). The court issued a permanent injunction prohibiting CBP from collecting Section 122 duties from the three prevailing plaintiff- importers and ordered refunds with statutory interest for duties already paid; it declined to issue a nationwide injunction. The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) entered an administrative stay of the CIT injunction on 12 May 2026 pending appeal, and the CIT denied the government's own motion to stay its ruling on 20 May 2026; the CAFC appeal is now pending.

Prime Ministerial Decree No. 1440 of 2026 was published in Egypt's Official Gazette (Al-Waqa'i Al-Misriyya) on 6 May 2026 and entered into force on 7 May 2026. The decree amends the Executive Regulations of Mineral Resources Law No. 198 of 2014, replacing operative provisions previously governed by Prime Ministerial Decree No. 108 of 2020. Key changes include reducing the minimum government-equity floor for MRMIA participation in mining JVs from 25% to 10%, empowering MRMIA to incorporate or participate in specialised exploration and exploitation companies inside and outside Egypt, revising rental rates and royalty parameters, introducing a new laboratory-licensing regime, and adding land-use prohibitions around archaeological sites, airports, railways, and pipelines.

President Félix Tshisekedi mandated a 30-day audit at the 87th Council of Ministers (April 24, 2026) to track DRC mining export revenues from shipment through foreign-currency repatriation to government receipt, targeting copper and cobalt — the country's two dominant export minerals. The directive responds to a systemic gap between record 2025 export volumes (~3.4 Mt copper, ~220 kt cobalt) and proportional state revenue collection, and builds on a prior audit that identified ~$16.8 billion in underreported revenues between 2018 and 2023. Initial findings are due no later than June 15, 2026, and enforcement exposure is concentrated on the major vertically integrated operators — Glencore, CMOC, and Ivanhoe Mines.

On 7 April 2026, Morocco's Minister of Energy Transition and Sustainable Development, Leila Benali, officially launched the Cadastre Minier Numérique du Maroc (dmcm.mem.gov.ma) at GITEX Africa in Marrakech — a national digital registry consolidating geological potential data, administrative records and regulatory information for all mining titles nationwide. The platform dematerialises permit application, renewal and monitoring procedures previously run through paper-based, region-by-region administrative circuits, and is framed by MTEDD as part of a broader ongoing mining sector reform. No budget, title count, or phased-deployment timeline was disclosed at launch.

On March 29, 2026, the DRC Conseil des Ministres approved a draft decree modifying and supplementing Decree n°11/28 of June 7, 2021, which establishes the statute of the Centre d'Expertise, d'Evaluation et de Certification (CEEC). The reform formally enshrines CEEC as a "certification authority" recognized in law — a role previously exercised in practice but lacking explicit statutory grounding. CEEC gains explicit authority to determine the physicochemical characteristics of all mineral substances produced on DRC territory, covering the nature, chemical composition, geographic origin, and legal provenance of exports across all strategic minerals including cobalt, copper, coltan, cassiterite, gold, and tantalum.

Minister of Trade Regulation No. 6 of 2026 (Permendag 6/2026), signed 26 March 2026 and effective 1 April 2026, amends the appendix of Permendag 22/2023 on Goods Prohibited for Export, making four substantive changes to Indonesia's prohibited-export list: (i) nitrogen-containing mineral and chemical fertilizers, including urea in all forms, are added to the prohibited-export list as a food-security instrument; (ii) rice is removed from the prohibited-export list, partially reversing a long-standing prohibition; (iii) rough wood, sawn wood, and wood carpentry and building products are added as value-added-export-requirement items, extending Indonesia's hilirisasi downstream-processing doctrine from minerals into the forestry-products sector; and (iv) rattan weaving materials remain prohibited for export. Together with the simultaneously enacted Permendag 5/2026 (fourth amendment to Permendag 23/2023 on export-licensing procedures), this forms Indonesia's most consequential 2026 export-regulation package.

Peru's Mining Council (Consejo de Minería) issued Resolution No. 236-2026-MINEM/CM on 19 March 2026, declaring null and void Directoral Resolution No. 0692-2025-MINEM/DGM of 13 October 2025, which had authorised Southern Peru Copper Corporation (SPCC, NYSE: SCCO; subsidiary of Grupo México) to begin exploitation activities at the Tía María copper project in Islay province, Arequipa. The council found the original DGM authorisation lacked adequate legal motivation and failed to address two technical observations relating to waste-dump infrastructure design and construction-sequencing plans, as required under the Regulation of Mining Procedures and the consolidated text of the Administrative Procedures Act (Law 27444). The resolution returned the file to the General Directorate of Mining (DGM) for technical re-evaluation, without terminating the project's administrative procedure; MINEM subsequently re-authorised the project's first-stage La Tapada open-pit operations on approximately 20 April 2026 after a revised technical assessment.

The DRC government's APCSC formally launched a technical and financial audit of the Sicomines Sino-Congolese mining project on March 5, 2026, signing consortium contracts with ATF-PCSC/Mayer Brown (legal), Rothschild & Cie (financial valuation), EY (accounting and tax), and SRK Consulting (resource certification). The audit covers 16 years of project implementation (2008–2024), examining revenue flows, infrastructure delivery commitments, and compliance with the collaboration convention and its five amendments. The initiative signals DRC's intention to renegotiate or enforce Amendment 5 (2024) terms, which conditioned any further project expansion on audit outcomes and a certified feasibility study.

On 18 February 2025 Tailings Dam 15 at Sino-Metals Leach Zambia Limited's Chambishi facility (Copperbelt Province, Kalulushi District) failed, releasing acidic leach residue into the Chambishi Stream and the Mwambashi and Kafue Rivers; the company suspended operations and the Zambia Environmental Management Agency (ZEMA) commissioned an independent Environmental and Social Incident Impact Assessment (ESIIA). ZEMA received the consultant's final report on 19 December 2025 and held a public disclosure meeting in Kitwe on 6 January 2026. On 2 February 2026 the Ministry of Mines and Minerals Development announced that the investigation had concluded and that, once ZEMA's review of the findings is complete, stakeholders will be engaged to determine remediation and compensation modalities. Company clean-up operations began in March 2026.

President Daniel Noboa signed Executive Decree 273 on 31 December 2025 (effective 1 January 2026), the most significant overhaul of Ecuador's mining regulation since the 2009 Mining Code. The decree amends the Reglamento General a la Ley de Minería to (i) replace the fixed 3–8% royalty range with a price-indexed sliding scale tied to a trailing three-year LME reference price, (ii) require all mining projects to supply 100% of their electricity needs (no grid draw), (iii) tighten exploration-phase timelines and introduce automatic extinction of concessions where activities do not begin in time, (iv) modify royalty-deduction rules so gold/silver royalties are computed on gross revenue without deductions while small/medium operators of other metals can still deduct refining/transport/benefit costs, and (v) allocate 60% of mining royalties to social projects via decentralised governments (45% provincial, 35% municipal, 20% parochial). The decree was published in Registro Oficial Suplemento 195 of 31 December 2025 and is not retroactive.

On 26 December 2025 the Peruvian executive promulgated and published in El Peruano Ley N° 32537, modifying Decreto Legislativo 1293 to extend the Registro Integral de Formalización Minera (REINFO) — Peru's artisanal-and-small-scale mining formalisation registry — through 31 December 2026, or until the new MAPE Law and its regulations enter into force, whichever occurs first. The statute is the parent instrument above DS 009-2025-EM (May 2025) and pushes the formalisation regime — which previously had a 30 June 2025 sunset under Ley 32213 — out by another 18 months. It also (i) orders a national MAPE census run by INEI, MINEM and INGEMMET (to begin within six months and conclude within twelve), (ii) requires REINFO registrants to declare real operational coordinates within 120 days via the Ventanilla Única de Formalización Minera, (iii) compels regional governments to transfer their formalisation paper and digital archives to MINEM within 60 days, and (iv) directs SUNAFIL to issue payroll-compliance verification rules for REINFO holders within 60 days. The law affects ~80,000+ artisanal and small-scale miners and is the statutory ceiling under which Peru's gold and copper-concentrate export chain operates.

Zambia enacted the Income Tax (Amendment) (No. 2) Act No. 17 of 2025, assented to 23 December 2025 and effective 1 January 2026, introducing two mining-specific fiscal provisions. First, interest deductibility is capped at 30% of tax EBITDA for all companies, with unrelieved interest carry-forwardable for up to five years (general) or ten years for entities in mining and electricity generation. Second, mining companies deriving at least 75% of gross income in foreign exchange from outside Zambia may maintain their books of accounts in US dollars, reducing FX translation risk for dollar-denominated operators. Both measures are structurally distinct from the concurrent Act No. 10 of 2025 (Minimum Alternative Tax and loss carry-forward cap).

Arrêté ministériel n° 00964/CAB.MIN/MINES/01/2025, signed 19 December 2025 by DRC Mines Minister Louis Watum Kabamba, suspends with immediate effect all activities of entities (notably comptoirs d'achat / buying counters, treatment units and similar structures) involved in the purchase, processing, transformation and commercialisation of copper and cobalt minerals sourced from artisanal exploitation across the country. Industrial, legally established mining operators are excluded. The order requires affected entities to submit compliance documentation within ten days, establishes an ad hoc commission to verify administrative, legal, technical and traceability conformity (15-day review window), and obliges operators to demonstrate the lawful origin of their supplies in line with OECD due-diligence guidance. Framed as a "conservatory" measure to restore order in the cupro-cobaltifère value chain and curb illicit exports.

In the early hours of 11 December 2025 the Council of the EU and the European Parliament reached provisional political agreement in trilogue on the "EU Pharma Package" — the revised pharmaceutical Regulation (COM 2023/0131) and Directive (COM 2023/0132) — the most significant overhaul of EU pharmaceutical legislation in over two decades. The package replaces Directive 2001/83/EC (Community Code on medicinal products for human use) and Regulation (EC) 726/2004 (the EMA Regulation), and consolidates the orphan-medicine (Regulation 141/2000) and pediatric-medicine regulations into a single framework. Headline provisions: (i) a new "8+1(+1)(+1)" IP-incentive architecture — 8 years of regulatory data protection plus 1 year of market protection, with up to two additional 12-month extensions for products addressing unmet medical need or new active substances meeting comparative-trial conditions, capped at 11 years total; (ii) an EU-wide list of critical medicines under enhanced governance via the Medicines Shortages Steering Group (MSSG) and an EMA "list of critical shortages in the EU"; (iii) mandatory shortage-prevention plans on marketing-authorisation holders for prescription medicines and Commission-designated products; (iv) modernisation of clinical-trial requirements, environmental-risk assessment, antimicrobial stewardship, and a transferable-exclusivity-voucher (TEV) regime to incentivise novel antibiotic R&D. The COREPER I committee endorsed the compromise text on 6 March 2026 and final adoption by Parliament and Council is expected during summer 2026, with the regulatory framework becoming applicable in 2028.

Pakistan's Directorate General of Customs Valuation (Karachi), acting under the Federal Board of Revenue, issued Valuation Ruling No. 2029/2025 on 3 December 2025, fixing new minimum customs values for imports of eleven aroma and aromatic chemicals used in perfumes and cosmetics — Citronellol, Coumarin, Dihydro Myrcenol, Eugenol, Geraniol, Linalool, Musk Ambrette, Sandela, Eucalyptus Oil, Peppermint Oil, and Vanillin — sourced primarily from China. The ruling was triggered by representations from domestic importer M/s Franscent (Pvt.) Ltd., which alleged systematic under-invoicing of these products, and was determined under Section 25(9) read with Sections 25(5) and 25(6) of the Customs Act, 1969, after the Directorate found transaction-value and comparable-goods valuation methods unworkable due to sparse and inconsistent import data. Clearance Collectorates were instructed to enforce accurate CAS-number and chemical-identity declarations to prevent misclassification against the new benchmark values.

On 6 November 2025, the US Department of the Interior (DOI) and the US Geological Survey (USGS) released the final 2025 List of Critical Minerals under the Energy Act of 2020 (30 U.S.C. § 1606), expanding the designation from 50 to 60 minerals. The final list adds 10 newly designated commodities — boron, copper, lead, metallurgical coal, phosphate, potash, rhenium, silicon, silver, and uranium — based on updated supply-chain disruption modelling, public comment, and interagency recommendations. The list constitutes the foundational statutory anchor for downstream US critical-minerals policy instruments including DPA Title III awards, DOE LPO Title 17 loan eligibility, IRA Section 45X Advanced Manufacturing Production Credit eligibility, Section 30D FEOC determinations, BIS export-control predicate assessments, Section 232 trade-investigation predicates, and CFIUS critical-technology triggers under 31 CFR § 800.215.

The Bank of Zambia formally accepted Chinese renminbi (RMB/CNY) for copper and cobalt mining royalty and tax payments starting October 2025, making Zambia the first African country to establish an official RMB settlement channel for mining fiscal flows. In December 2025 the BoZ began publishing an official RMB-kwacha exchange rate to enable precise royalty and corporate tax calculations. The central bank cited efficiency grounds: Chinese mining companies operating Zambia's largest copper producers already receive export revenues in yuan from Chinese off-takers, making yuan-denominated tax settlement a natural extension that also reduces Zambia's Chinese-debt servicing friction. The policy embeds Chinese currency infrastructure into the sovereign fiscal architecture governing Zambia's copper and cobalt supply chain, deepening structural alignment between Zambia's resource sector and China's commodity-import ecosystem.

Indonesia's Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources issued Permen ESDM No. 17 of 2025 on procedures for preparing, submitting and approving Work Plans and Budgets (RKAB) and reporting of mineral and coal mining activities. Signed by Minister Bahlil Lahadalia on 30 September 2025 and in force from 3 October 2025, the regulation reverses the 2023 three-year RKAB cycle back to an annual cycle, requires all IUP/IUPK holders to resubmit through the new MinerbaOne digital portal between 1 October and 15 November each year, annuls previously-issued 2026/2027 quotas, and introduces a 5-working-day auto-approval rule. Operationalised by a 2026 nickel-ore RKAB target band of 250–270 million wmt — roughly one third below the 2025 approved quota of ~379 million wmt — explicitly framed as a price-management and conservation instrument. First clear use of the RKAB framework as an explicit market-management lever rather than a domestic-licensing tool.

Republic Act 12253, signed by President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. on 4 September 2025, replaces the Philippines' long-standing flat-royalty regime for large-scale metallic mining with a five-tier margin-based royalty (1–5% on income from mines outside mineral reservations; 5% retained inside reservations) layered on a five-tier windfall-profits tax (1–10% on profits above a 30% margin), and ring-fences each mining agreement as a separate taxable entity. The law amends the National Internal Revenue Code (RA 8424) and is projected to raise an additional PHP 25.08 bn over 2026–2029. The new fiscal regime became operative on 17 February 2026, 150 days after effectivity, with DOF-issued IRR.

Zambia enacted the Income Tax (Amendment) Act No. 10 of 2025 on 8 August 2025, gazetted 19 August 2025, introducing three interlocking fiscal measures. First, a 1% Minimum Alternative Tax (MAT) on annual turnover applies to all companies and partnerships, creditable against standard income tax with a five-year carry-forward — directly raising the floor tax burden on large copper and cobalt mining groups that have historically reported low taxable profits. Second, the 50% annual loss carry-forward cap (previously mining-sector-specific) is universalised, reducing the tax-shelter advantage for capital-intensive mining projects with front-loaded losses. Third, withholding tax on government-securities interest is raised from 15% to 20%.

Vietnam's Government adopted Decree 193/2025/ND-CP on 2 July 2025 (effective retroactively from 1 July 2025) as the primary operational statute elaborating the Law on Geology and Minerals No. 54/2024/QH15. The decree decentralises licensing for most mineral categories to provincial People's Committees while preserving central Ministry of Agriculture and Environment (MAE) authority over strategic and critical minerals, including rare earths, gold, uranium, and thorium. It codifies a three-tier Group I/II/III mineral classification, imposes a 100% financial-capacity bond requirement for exploration licences, sets a 40-working-day processing deadline, and defines the closed-enterprise framework that makes Vietnam's 1 January 2026 raw rare-earth export ban operationally enforceable through a Prime-Minister-designated list of licensed enterprises.

Malaysia's Ministry of Finance gazetted the Customs (Prohibition of Imports) (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2025, amending the Customs (Prohibition of Imports) Order 2023 (P.U. (A) 117/2023) issued under subsection 31(1) of the Customs Act 1967. The order imposes an absolute prohibition, effective 31 December 2025, on importing dummy buckles, seat-belt alarm stoppers, seat-belt clip extenders, or any other accessory or device designed to be inserted into a seat-belt buckle to disable or bypass the seat-belt safety reminder and render the mechanism inoperative. The ban applies to all countries of origin without exception; Global Trade Alert lists Belgium, China and Czechia as principally affected exporters of the trade-catalogue category covering these parts.

On 11 June 2025 the Peruvian government published Decreto Supremo N° 003-2025-IN in El Peruano, approving the Estrategia Nacional para la Reducción e Interdicción de la Minería Ilegal en el Perú al 2030. Issued by the Ministerio del Interior (MININTER) and coordinating 17 public institutions, the strategy establishes six specific objectives to dismantle the full criminal chain of illegal mining — from unauthorised extraction through commercialisation of illegally-sourced minerals — across four critical intervention phases. It is institutionally distinct from the parallel MINEM-administered REINFO formalisation track (DS 009-2025-EM + Ley 32537), targeting unregistered illegal operations via PNP, Fiscalía, SUNAT, MINAM, and regional governments, with PCM as the strategy-steering body and a 2030 horizon.

Peru's Ministry of Energy and Mines published Decreto Supremo N° 009-2025-EM in El Peruano on 18 May 2025, approving the implementing regulation for Law 32213 (Dec 2024). The decree operationalises the extension of the REINFO mining-formalisation registry deadline through 30 June 2025 (extendable +6 months), reaffirms MINEM as the rector authority over the small-scale and artisanal mining (MAPE) formalisation process, and creates SIPMMA — the Sistema Interoperable de Pequeña Minería y Minería Artesanal — as a state interoperable system for operational traceability of minerals, explosives, chemical inputs and controlled products. A controversial Article 10 had also opened a "REINFO hereditario" path allowing succession transfer of registry inscriptions; that provision was derogated two weeks later by DS 010-2025-EM (1 Jun 2025) under domestic and international anti-illegal-mining pressure.

Stortinget adopted Norway's new Minerals Act (Lov om mineralvirksomhet og forvaltning av mineralressurser) on 12 June 2025, replacing the 2009 Minerals Act and entering into force 1 July 2026. The statute introduces a national-security review pillar enabling authorities to deny or condition projects that threaten national preparedness, reduces exploration-licence duration from seven to three years to accelerate project initiation, expands Sámi consultation protections from Finnmark to all traditional Sámi areas (Sápmi), and mandates explicit alignment with the EU Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA, Regulation (EU) 2024/1252). The Act covers Norway's most strategically significant mineral assets including the Fen carbonatite REE field (Europe's largest known REE deposit) and major copper-zinc deposits.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued a final rule on 21 March 2025 adopting without change its 13 September 2024 interim final rule that doubled the recordkeeping retention requirement for transactions subject to OFAC regulations from five years to ten years. The extension aligns 31 CFR 501.601, paragraph IV.B of appendix A to part 501, and 31 CFR 515.572 with the 10-year statute of limitations for IEEPA and TWEA violations enacted by the 21st Century Peace through Strength Act of 24 April 2024. The interim final rule's 10-year retention obligation became effective 12 March 2025; the final rule confirmed the IFR text without modification.

Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandon issued Order No. 06/PM on 7 March 2025 introducing two headline measures: (i) a permanent nationwide ban on all alluvial gold extraction, including gravel- and sand-suction methods, and (ii) a moratorium on approval of any new metallic-mineral projects for the remainder of the current government term. The Order also mandates enhanced monitoring and inspection of existing licensed mining operations, with particular focus on environmental compliance and remediation. Rationale cited by the PM includes recurring landslide and water-contamination incidents attributed to unregulated artisanal and semi-industrial extraction. This is the first instrument issued under the post-2024-Investment-Promotion-Law framework that directly constrains new-mine pipeline development in Laos, reversing the outward-FDI-friendly signal that Law 62/NA had sent to Chinese-backed project sponsors.

Indonesia issued Government Regulation (Peraturan Pemerintah) No. 8 of 2025 on Foreign-Exchange Proceeds from Natural-Resource Exports (DHE SDA), amending PP No. 36/2023. President Prabowo Subianto announced the policy at Merdeka Palace on 17–18 February 2025 and the regulation takes effect on 1 March 2025. It mandates that exporters of non-oil- and-gas mining, plantation, forestry, and fisheries products with export-proceeds value of USD 250,000 or more per shipment retain 100 percent of those foreign-exchange proceeds inside Indonesia's financial system for 12 months — sharply up from the prior 30 percent for 3 months under PP 36/2023. Oil-and-gas exporters remain on the earlier 30 percent / 3-month regime. Permitted in-period uses include rupiah conversion at the holding bank, payment of state obligations in foreign currency, dividend distribution, payment for imported raw materials and capital goods unavailable domestically, and servicing of foreign-currency capital-expenditure loans. Non-compliance carries administrative sanctions including suspension of export services. The government has projected the measure could lift retained foreign- exchange proceeds by USD 80 billion in 2025 and over USD 100 billion on a full 12-month basis.

Zambia's Parliament enacted the Property Transfer Tax (Amendment) Act No. 27 of 2024, assented to by President Hichilema on 24 December 2024 and in force from 1 January 2025. The Act introduces a first-ever dedicated Property Transfer Tax (PTT) schedule for mining rights: 10% of realised value on transfers of mining licences and mineral processing licences, and 8% on transfers of exploration licences. The measure directly raises the transaction cost of copper and cobalt mine acquisitions, stake transfers, and licence assignments across the Zambia Copperbelt. It is the fifth distinct fiscal or governance instrument enacted since 2024 in Zambia's rolling reform of its mining regulatory architecture.

The Minerals Regulation Commission Act, No. 14 of 2024 repeals and replaces Zambia's 2015 Mines and Minerals Development Act in its entirety, establishing a new autonomous Minerals Regulation Commission (MRC) as the country's central mining-sector regulator together with a standalone Mining Appeals Tribunal. The Act restructures licensing, royalty administration, monitoring and enforcement, and creates a dedicated dispute-resolution architecture separating regulatory and adjudicatory functions. Assented to on 20 December 2024 and gazetted on 26 December 2024, the Act took effect on 13 June 2025 pursuant to the Minerals Regulation Commission Act, 2024 (Commencement) Order, 2025 (SI 42 of 2025) signed by the Minister of Mines and Minerals Development on 3 June 2025.

The U.S. Department of Commerce, through the International Trade Administration's Enforcement and Compliance unit, issued a final rule revising the annexes to 19 CFR Part 351 to modernize the forms, certifications, and instructions used by parties to antidumping (AD) and countervailing duty (CVD) proceedings. The modernization updates legacy paperwork (entries-of-appearance, questionnaire certifications, scope-application templates, service lists) for the electronic ACCESS filing era and aligns the annexes with Commerce's 2024 substantive AD/CVD rulemakings. A correcting amendment published 31 March 2025 (FR Doc. 2025-05482) fixed inadvertent date and regulatory-language errors in the December rule but left its substantive content unchanged.

The Cook Islands government promulgated the Seabed Minerals (Minerals Harvesting and Other Mining) Regulations 2024 (Serial 2024/11), entering into force 1 October 2024, as the first statutory framework enabling commercial-scale polymetallic-nodule harvesting in the Cook Islands' 1.96 million km² EEZ — one of the world's largest documented manganese-nodule provinces estimated at ~6.7 billion metric tonnes. The Regulations were issued by the SBMA under the Seabed Minerals Act 2009 and establish the licensing pathway, environmental-assessment standards, royalty-and-benefit-sharing framework, production-licence application criteria, and operator financial-assurance requirements for the commercial harvesting tier. The government has stated that only exploration activities are currently permitted and that harvesting licences will not be granted until a science-based environmental decision has been made; the Regulations nonetheless create the legal architecture that would activate commercial extraction, structurally peer to Norway's June 2024 Arctic seabed-mining opening and ahead of the stalled ISA Mining Code negotiations.

Angola's National Assembly enacted Law No. 8/24 on 3 July 2024, establishing graduated criminal penalties for illegal mining activity involving strategic minerals as defined in the Mining Code. The law creates imprisonment terms of 3–8 years for promoting or facilitating illegal operations, 2–8 years for installing unlicensed equipment or initiating unauthorised mining, and 2–6 years for transporting illegally-mined minerals, alongside a forfeiture mechanism enabling the State to seize instruments, products, and proceeds of crime. The measure closes a gap in Angola's prior Mining Code (Law 31/11 of 2011), which lacked standalone criminal-enforcement provisions for strategic-minerals protection. A companion instrument, Presidential Order No. 39/24 of 26 January 2024, established the National Observatory to Combat Illegal Exploitation of Strategic Mineral Resources as the coordinating enforcement body.

Peraturan Menteri Energi dan Sumber Daya Mineral (Permen ESDM) No. 6 of 2024, signed by Minister Arifin Tasrif on 30 May 2024 and published in the Berita Negara Republik Indonesia, establishes the procedural framework governing how holders of Mining Business Licences (IUP) and Special Mining Business Licences (IUPK) for copper, iron, lead, and zinc production may continue to sell processed mineral products abroad during the final phase of domestic smelter construction. Licence holders that previously obtained MEMR export recommendations and whose refining facilities have reached commissioning stage but are not yet at full operational capacity may apply for time-bound extensions to sell concentrate and semi-processed ore offshore through 31 December 2024, subject to quarterly physical inspections by the Director General of Minerals and Coal. The regulation is the MEMR-side companion instrument to the same-day Permendag 10/2024 (Ministry of Trade copper-concentrate and anode-sludge export prohibition), together constituting the complete legal architecture of Indonesia's copper hilirisasi (downstream- processing) mandate. Its scope is broader than the Trade Ministry rule: it covers copper, iron, lead, and zinc whereas Permendag 10/2024 targets copper and anode-sludge only, and it operates as the conditional derogation mechanism (MEMR) to Permendag 10/2024's absolute prohibition regime (Trade Ministry).

The Central African Republic enacted a comprehensive new Mining Code (Law No. 24-008) in May 2024, replacing the prior framework to govern all prospecting, exploration, exploitation, processing, and marketing of mineral deposits. The code creates two state enterprises: GEMINCA (Gemmes et Minéraux de Centrafrique), mandated as the state-designated purchaser of precious and semi-precious minerals — introducing a state monopsony channel for diamond and gold purchasing — and SONADERM (Société Nationale de Développement des Ressources Minérales), charged with geological survey and mineral-domain promotion. Mandatory EITI, Kimberley Process, and ICGLR compliance is imposed on all mining title holders, forecloses informal-sector operators, and tightens supply-chain due-diligence requirements for downstream importers. A companion formalisation framework licences artisanal and small-scale mining through cooperatives and purchasing-office structures, and a dedicated mining fund distinct from Treasury accounts is established to channel sector revenues.

The Pleno of Panama's Supreme Court of Justice unanimously declared Law 406 of 20 October 2023 — which ratified the renewed mining-concession contract between the Panamanian State and Minera Panamá S.A. (a subsidiary of Canada's First Quantum Minerals) — unconstitutional in its entirety. The ruling, delivered 27 November 2023 and published in Gaceta Oficial No. 29922 on 2 December 2023, found violations of 25 constitutional articles and ordered the orderly closure of the Cobre Panamá open-pit copper mine, which had produced ~350,000 t/yr of copper (~1% of global mined supply) and accounted for ~5% of Panama's GDP. The decision triggered a de-facto Panama-wide moratorium on new large-scale metals concessions and pending ICSID arbitration claims by First Quantum and Korea Resources / KORES (COFINPRO).

Chile enacted Ley No. 21.591 on 10 August 2023, establishing a two-component progressive mining royalty on large-scale copper producers with annual sales of 50,000 or more metric tons of fine copper (TMCF): a 1% ad valorem charge on annual copper sales, plus a progressive operating-margin component (RIOMA) at 8–26% of adjusted taxable mining operating income. The combined tax burden is capped at 46.5% of adjusted pre-tax earnings (45.5% for producers below 80,000 TMCF). The royalty entered force on 1 January 2024 and represents the first copper-taxation reform in Chile in over two decades, directly re-pricing output from BHP Escondida, Codelco, Antofagasta Minerals, and Anglo American operations — together accounting for a majority of Chile's ~5.3 Mt/year copper output.

OFAC published a final rule on January 13, 2023 adjusting the maximum civil monetary penalty (CMP) ceiling amounts across multiple statutory sanctions authorities as mandated by the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act of 1990 (as amended by the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act Improvements Act of 2015). The adjustment covers IEEPA, TWEA, and the Narcotics Kingpin Act authorities, resetting the penalty ceilings that apply to violations adjudicated through 2023. A correction notice (C1-2023-00593, April 17, 2023) fixed a purely typographical error in Appendix A to 31 CFR Part 501 — paragraph numbering "v" corrected to "vi" — with no change to any penalty amount.

On 29 June 2022 the Government of Fiji formally joined the Alliance of Countries for a Deep Sea Mining Moratorium at the United Nations Ocean Conference in Lisbon, Portugal. Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama committed Fiji to a precautionary moratorium on commercial seabed mining pending finalisation of the International Seabed Authority (ISA) mining code and comprehensive scientific assessment of environmental impacts. Fiji confirmed it would not operationalise its International Seabed Minerals Management Act 2013 ahead of the ISA regulatory framework. The moratorium stance has been consistently reaffirmed under the subsequent Rabuka administration (2024, 2025), and at the ISA Pacific SIDS Regional Workshop in Suva in May 2026 Minister Filimoni Vosarogo confirmed Fiji remains aligned with the ISA process and will not activate domestic seabed-minerals licensing.

The Income Tax (Amendment) Act, 2021 (Act No. 43 of 2021), assented 30 December 2021 and in force from 1 January 2022, re-introduces the deductibility of Mineral Royalty Tax (MRT) paid under the Mines and Minerals Development Act, 2015 when computing a mining company's taxable income for corporate income tax purposes. The Act removes mineral royalty from the list of non-deductible expenditures in section 44 of the Income Tax Act, reversing a non-deductibility rule that had applied since a 2015-era amendment and that mining companies and industry stakeholders had argued produced double taxation of the same revenue stream. Deductibility is conditional on the royalty having actually been paid for the charge year.

OFAC amended 31 CFR Part 539 (Weapons of Mass Destruction Trade Control Regulations) to add Executive Order 13382 (28 June 2005, blocking property of WMD proliferators and their supporters) as an explicit statutory authority for the programme. The rule simultaneously removed Appendix I to Part 539, which had listed foreign persons subject to import measures; all persons previously enumerated in the appendix had already been determined no longer subject to those measures via prior Federal Register publications. Three definitions in Sections 539.301, 539.302, and 539.304 were updated to remove cross-references to the now-deleted appendix. The amendment is purely administrative with no change to the substantive scope of WMD trade-control prohibitions.

On 27 January 2018 the DRC National Assembly adopted Loi n° 18/001, comprehensively amending the foundational 2002 Mining Code (Loi n° 007/2002); President Joseph Kabila promulgated the law on 9 March 2018, published in the Journal Officiel special issue of 28 March 2018, with implementing Décret n° 18/024 (Règlement Minier) following on 8 June 2018. The Code introduces a 10% royalty on minerals designated "strategic" by the Council of Ministers — cobalt, coltan, lithium, and germanium confirmed — up from the 2% standard non-ferrous rate, and raises all standard mining royalties (non-ferrous 2→3.5%, precious metals 2.5→3.5%, precious stones 4→6%). The state's mandatory free-carry interest in new mining projects is doubled from 5% to 10% (Article 71), with a further 10% paid-carry option creating an effective 20% state-participation floor; contract-stability guarantees are simultaneously curtailed from 10 to 5 years (Article 276), explicitly invalidating pre-existing stabilisation clauses. As the foundational statute governing every DRC mining-rights grant, royalty-rate setting, and export-control delegation, the 2018 Code is the parent authority for ARECOMS (established 2019 under its strategic-minerals framework) and the legal basis for both the 2025 cobalt export-ban/quota regime and the 2025 artisanal-processing suspension — making it the mandatory upstream context for the entire filed DRC action cluster.

On 27 December 2017 President Nursultan Nazarbayev signed Code No. 125-VI ZRK "On Subsoil and Subsoil Use," a wholesale recodification replacing the 2010 Subsoil Use Law that entered into force on 29 June 2018 (with certain provisions deferred to 1 January 2019). The Code establishes the licensing architecture for all mineral extraction in Kazakhstan — the world's leading uranium producer (~40% of global U₃O₈ output, ~22,000 tU/yr) and a top-11 oil exporter (~1.8 mbpd) — covering solid minerals, hydrocarbons, and uranium under a single codified framework. For solid minerals the Code introduces a liberalised "first-come first-served" auction-free licence model for non-strategic deposits and a state-tender model for strategic deposits, alongside subsoil-use rights transfer and pledge provisions governing all M&A in the sector. For uranium the Code codifies the National Atomic Company Kazatomprom's statutory role as state operator over all uranium blocks, with government priority pre-emption rights and mandatory Kazatomprom participation in all production licences. For hydrocarbons the Code establishes the concession and production-sharing framework governing the pre-salt Caspian mega-projects (Tengiz, Karachaganak, Kashagan) and the model contract architecture for petroleum products. Horizontal obligations — local Kazakh-content procurement floors, social-package requirements, and environmental-restoration mine-closure security — apply across all subsoil-use categories. Structurally this Code is the parent statute for every subsequently filed KZ action: the 2023-12-28 REE Comprehensive Plan and the 2025-12-26 Kazatomprom uranium-priority amendments both operate under delegated authority created by this Code.