Chile's Lithium Nationalisation Decree Survives a Constitutional Challenge but Faces a Slower Crisis: No State Company Capable of Running It

President Gabriel Boric's decree asserting state strategic control over Chile's lithium sector has been upheld by the Constitutional Court by a 6-4 margin. The legal victory has exposed an operational problem the decree's drafters acknowledged but underestimated: Codelco, the state copper company designated to lead lithium development, lacks the technical capacity, capital structure, and workforce to take on the world's largest lithium reserves without the private sector partnerships that nationalisation was designed to reduce.