JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Law firm Webber Wentzel on Monday announced that the head of its mining and regulatory practice group, Peter Leon, had been elected as the chairperson of the mining law committee of the International Bar Association (IBA).

The appointment would be valid for two years, and was effective from January 1, 2009.

Leon was the only member of the committee from Africa.

“It is a great honour to be elected chair, as this will help place South Africa on centre stage of the world’s mining law community,” Leon said.

“It will enable the country to benefit from interaction with the principal international mining lawyers, as well as institutions such as the World Bank.”

Leon added that during his term, he would aim to help develop an international best practice regulatory model for the world’s mining industry, and would be co-chairing a multidisciplinary panel on this issues, with lawyers from Chile, Nigeria, and other developing countries at the IBA’s Madrid annual conference.

“Security of tenure is critical to new mining projects and developing a best practice regulatory model can contribute significantly to the health of the mining industry, at a time of rapidly declining commodity prices. This has already begun to impact on developing world commodity producers such as South Africa, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and Peru.”

The Mining Law Committee comprises of lawyers from Australia, Canada, the US, Argentina, Brazil, Finland, Italy, Indonesia, and Peru.

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