TY - JOUR
T1 - International Governance of Oil Spills from Upstream Petroleum Activities in the Arctic
T2 - Response over Prevention?
AU - Shapovalova-Krout, Daria
N1 - The paper is partly based on the author’s PhD thesis submitted to the University of Aberdeen in 2017. The author is grateful to her supervisors Professor Tina Hunter and Dr Catherine Ng, and her examiners Professor Elizabeth Kirk and Professor Timo Koivurova for their time and comments.
PY - 2019/11
Y1 - 2019/11
N2 - The discovery of the petroleum resources in the Arctic waters and the rapid loss of sea ice raise concerns over environmental risks of oil development in the Arctic waters. One of the biggest threats to the marine environment from offshore oil production is a large-scale oil spill, akin to Deepwater Horizon. The challenging operating conditions, lack of infrastructure and effective clean-up techniques in the Arctic conditions exacerbate the need to ensure robust regulation of petroleum activities in the region. Whereas national laws vary extensively across the Arctic States, international law does not offer a uniform approach to prevention of and response to oil spills. This paper examines the scope and application of the relevant treaties and argues that a regulatory gap exists in the prevention of oil spills and addressing the challenges of response in Arctic conditions. It further suggests that there is an increasing role for soft-law regional cooperation in addressing these gaps.
AB - The discovery of the petroleum resources in the Arctic waters and the rapid loss of sea ice raise concerns over environmental risks of oil development in the Arctic waters. One of the biggest threats to the marine environment from offshore oil production is a large-scale oil spill, akin to Deepwater Horizon. The challenging operating conditions, lack of infrastructure and effective clean-up techniques in the Arctic conditions exacerbate the need to ensure robust regulation of petroleum activities in the region. Whereas national laws vary extensively across the Arctic States, international law does not offer a uniform approach to prevention of and response to oil spills. This paper examines the scope and application of the relevant treaties and argues that a regulatory gap exists in the prevention of oil spills and addressing the challenges of response in Arctic conditions. It further suggests that there is an increasing role for soft-law regional cooperation in addressing these gaps.
KW - Arctic Ocean
KW - Oil Spills
KW - Arctic Governance
KW - Marine environment
KW - Offshore Energy Sector
KW - offshore energy sector
KW - marine environment
KW - Arctic governance
KW - oil spills
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85062943707&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.mendeley.com/research/international-governance-oil-spills-upstream-petroleum-activities-arctic-response-prevention
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-85062943707&partnerID=MN8TOARS
U2 - 10.1163/15718085-23342029
DO - 10.1163/15718085-23342029
M3 - Article
VL - 34
SP - 668
EP - 697
JO - International Journal of Marine and Coastal Law
JF - International Journal of Marine and Coastal Law
SN - 0927-3522
IS - 4
ER -
