Constituting the Commons: Oil and Development in Postindependence South Sudan

Abstract

South Sudan became the world’s newest nation on July 9, 2011, to a great deal of fanfare from the international community that had followed its devastating civil war for more than a generation. Some 2.5 million Sudanese were killed during the course of this conflict, a number that demonstrates how desperate Khartoum was to maintain control over the southern territory. A primary reason for this desperation was oil: South Sudan holds between 75 percent and 85 percent of the untapped petroleum reserves in the greater Sudanese region, and around 75 percent of the 500,000 barrels of oil presently extracted each day comes from the South. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended the war in 2005 required that the export revenues from oil in the South be split evenly between the two regions, which has translated into more than $10 billion for each side over the past five years. With little other economic output to speak of, South Sudan’s share of this revenue accounts for 71 percent of its GDP and a whopping 98 percent of the government’s annual operating budget.