Investors are usually believed to void investing in conflict zones when they expand their business globally. In this chapter, I explore the potential for foreign direct investment (FDI) to contribute to intrastate conflicts in developing countries, shedding light on the often-overlooked negative impact of foreign capital. Utilizing mixed methods, I analyze the impact of different types of FDI on the legalization of human rights laws prohibiting torture and other forms of political violence. Specifically, I focus on the impact different sectoral investments from foreign countries have on the process, as well as the impact of divergent weights of investment in each sector. I argue that foreign investment has heterogeneous effects across sectors on social conflicts in Africa. I rely on social conflict partially as a proxy for the strength of the legalization of human rights laws prohibiting government use of excessive force. Based on data in fDi Markets and the Armed Conflict, Location, and Event Project (ACLED) from 2013 to 2019, I use a difference-in-difference method, with net flows of foreign investment in each interested year by sector and lagged social conflicts, to study the causal relationship between FDI and the likelihood of inciting social conflicts in Africa. I compare Chinese oil investment in Sudan with Chinese construction and manufacturing investment in Ethiopia. Overall, the results demonstrate that investment toward “inclusive” sectors, including the manufacturing, construction, and service sectors, mitigate host countries’ social conflicts: such investment has positive spillover effects for the strength of civil society, local empowerment and provides long-term public welfare for local workers. By contrast, investment in “extractive” sectors, including the oil and mining sectors, intensifies host countries’ social conflicts, including wealth inequalities, corruption, and absences of government accountability to the public. There are a number of implications this study has for foreign investors, including proper timing for market entry, readjustment, and even withdrawal for MNCs. Moreover, investment managers do more to learn about the impacts of resource allocation across various sectors in society. Greater knowledge of local power structures and extant relations between non-governmental and governmental sectors in a country holds promise as a way of lessening the negative unintended consequences of FDI on social stability.