About The Project: Arctic Petroleum – The New Legal Frontier

'Regulating The Arctic Petroleum Frontier For The Global Common Good:  A Strategy To Prevent Oil Pollution In The Arctic As A Consequence Of Offshore Petroleum Activities'

Thesis Abstract

The purpose of the thesis is to contribute to International Law in an area which is, to this date, underdeveloped. Issues will be clarified, protocols developed and legal regimes systematized in order to address Arctic offshore petroleum Exploration and Production.

The thesis focuses on a sustainable legal framework in the context of an economic and political situation that would support it. Given the fragility of the Arctic region and the lack of a coherent legal structure to preserve its integrity at a time of increasing commercial Oil and Gas Field Development, a framework governing offshore petroleum activity is both necessary and timely.

The thesis provides a strategy for the establishment of a legal framework that would accommodate the competing interests that currently exist. These interests are immediate, complex and manifest themselves in the quest by nation states to open up the Arctic region for exploitation. Therefore, the thesis aims to develop mechanisms that would facilitate reconciling the commercial imperatives and the environmental imperatives associated with Arctic petroleum Field Development. It also focuses primarily on ‘upstream’ petroleum activities but the associated ‘downstream’ shipping operations are also investigated and analysed due to the risk of oil spill pollution that these also pose to the region. It is necessary to legally regulate these activities in order to facilitate and promote Sustainable Development.

In the context of this thesis, the notion of Sustainable Development is associated with the exploitation of the Arctic region and its resources. Given the high stakes involved, the exploitation of the Arctic is inextricably linked to the global need for regulation and adequate compliance mechanisms.

Climate Change, heightened Global Energy Security concerns and recent Major Accident Events such as the 2009 Montara wellhead ‘blow-out’ off Australia’s North-West Shelf and subsequent trans-boundary oil spill, together with the 2010 Macondo Deep-water Horizon oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, necessitate a revision of current legal notions of Arctic Governance within the petroleum resources sector.

This thesis differs from previously published materials in that it proposes a pragmatic and workable strategy that takes into account the multitude of variables affecting the Arctic region including geographic, natural resources, economic, political, administrative/ Executive co-management, social, strategic, environmental and most notably, for the purposes of this thesis, legal. The rationale of this thesis is the seismic change reflected in social awareness in relation to the Planet as a whole, not just the Arctic. Therefore, this thesis manifests those concerns through a proposed regulatory framework incorporating an effective strategy targeting offshore oil spill prevention and mitigation.

The thesis explores the legal complexities that are involved in devising responsible governance mechanisms and provides the basis for a strategy for the regulation of offshore petroleum Exploration and Production operations in the Arctic. It reflects a pragmatic approach to contemporary legal challenges facing the region and provides a functional and sustainable solution as regards to how these may be reconciled and overcome for the Global Common Good.

Investigator

Charles Alexander Paul, PhD Candidate, Australian Postgraduate Award Scholar, Senior Research Assistant and Member of the Centre for Law, Governance & Public Policy, Faculty of Law, Bond University; Solicitor of the Supreme Court of New South Wales and the High Court of Australia.

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