Deep beneath the deserts of Chagai lies one of the world's largest deposits of copper and gold. For decades, that wealth remained untouched, waiting to be transformed into jobs, exports, public revenue and economic opportunity. By 2011, that moment appeared to have arrived. Investors had committed billions of dollars, agreements had been negotiated, plans drawn, and what promised to become one of the largest foreign investments in Pakistan's history seemed ready to move from ambition to reality.

Instead, the project became trapped in a cycle that has come to define much of Pakistan's economic experience. The mining lease was refused, litigation followed, international arbitration followed litigation, and by the time the dispute ran its course Pakistan was facing a penalty of almost six billion dollars. More than a decade later, Reko Diq returned under a revised structure, new partners and fresh guarantees.

Throughout those years, the copper remained exactly where it had always been. Governments changed. Political narratives evolved. Legal positions shifted. The geology did not.

The story of Reko Diq is usually told as a dispute over contracts and mining rights. In reality it is the story of a country that repeatedly discovers opportunity but struggles to sustain commitment long enough to convert opportunity into prosperity.

In Why Nations Fail, Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson argue that economic growth depends less upon the abundance of resources than upon institutions capable of creating stable rules of the game. Investment flourishes when businesses believe that the rules governing economic life will remain broadly consistent regardless of who occupies office. When those........

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