New Discourses on Ocean Governance: Understanding Property Rights and the Public Trust (original) (raw)

Global environmental regulation of offshore energy production: Searching for legal standards in ocean governance

Review of European, Comparative & International Environmental Law

As the global demand for energy grows and scientific awareness about the irreversible effects of climate change increases, the oceans are receiving remarkable attention as a rich source of energy. 1 According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), a sustainable development scenario, according to which States get on track with their climate change and energy access goals, requires an additional US$4.6 trillion in capital investment in both traditional and renewable forms of offshore energy over the period to 2040. 2 The projected expansion of energy activities at sea raises reasonable concerns about their impact on the oceans. Traditionally, offshore oil and gas exploitation projects have been associated with a variety of environmental risks. 3 Either in the form of operational pollution, including drill cuttings, leakages of hydrocarbons and muds, or as accidental pollution resulting from massive blow-outs and collisions with 1 The United Nations has been supporting the promotion of renewable energy for achieving worldwide access to clean energy. One initiative worth mentioning is

Ocean Energy: A Legal Perspective

When talking about the marine renewable energy (MRE) industry, it is understandably engineering that comes to mind. Yet while the technology is already beginning to come of age, the legal, regulatory, and policy aspects surrounding deployment of MRE devices have been much slower to develop. Other industrial uses of the sea are well established and appropriate regulatory frameworks have developed over time to manage them. On the other hand, MRE is something of an uncharted territory. While some countries have pressed ahead with innovative reforms, other countries are using existing regulatory frameworks to permit proposed MRE projects. Either way, no jurisdiction has yet reached the end of the road in terms of regulatory reform, and it is clear that additional strategic planning and resource management strategies are needed to address the specific requirements of a commercial MRE industry.

Energy Sovereignty in Marine Spaces

The term “energy sovereignty” is used with differing emphases to describe a State’s rights or assertions over energy resources and supplies. Given the importance of offshore energy developments, particularly in the field of renewables, this article explores the meaning of energy sovereignty, arguing that more complex, cooperative approaches towards sovereignty are required in order to adapt to the nature of energy and energy demands. This approach is particularly important in the context of marine resources, where there is shown to be a carefully crafted balancing of interests between coastal States, third States and community interests. The article further suggests that in order to help explain energy sovereignty against this complex background, recourse may be had to theories of justification of ownership of resources. The example of natural rights-based approaches is used to show how this can inform the direction that legal regimes might take.

Management of Marine Rights, Restrictions and Responsibilities according to International Standards

The interests, responsibilities and opportunities of states to provide infrastructure and resource management are not limited to their land territory but extend to marine areas as well. So far, although the theoretical structure of a Marine Administration System (MAS) is based on the management needs of the various countries, the marine terms have not been clearly defined. In order to define a MAS that meets the spatial marine requirements, the specific characteristics of the marine environment have to be identified and integrated in a management system. To explicitly define MAS, certain issues need to be addressed such as: the types of interests that exist in marine environment, the best way to capture and register those interests, laws defining these interests, and their hierarchical classification, as well as how this classification can be used to produce the principles for the implementation of MSP. In addition, the registration of laws in a MAS that could automatically define the constraints of the emerging Rights, Restrictions and Responsibilities (RRRs) should be addressed, along with property/ tenure object definition. Further questions need to be answered e.g., what is the basic reference unit and how can this be defined, deliminated and demarcated, capturing the 3D presence of marine parcel and is the traditional definition of a cadastral parcel applicable in a marine zone defined by United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea (Hereinafter: UNCLOS) (United Nations, 1982) and how could the fourth dimensional nature of marine RRRs be included. Addressing these questions constitutes the basis upon which a MAS can be built. However, the most crucial question is how the international standards and practices of land administration domain can be used for managing the marine environment. The aim of this paper is to examine the above questions, to probe the ways the legislation can be included into a MAS and to present how RRRs relating to marine space may be defined and organized, in order to develop a MAS based on international standards by means of not only trading in marine interests, but rather facilitating the management of activities related to resources.

Access System Framework for Regulating Offshore Wind Power in State Waters

Coastal Management, 2009

Although there is considerable interest among wind power developers in the coastal states, few projects have been proposed to date. A major factor constraining resource development is the lack of a regulatory framework to provide access to the ocean space and allocate property rights to the submerged lands where the wind turbines can be installed. Efforts to address this void began in 2005 at the federal level, but it has progressed unevenly and unsuccessfully since that time. At the state level, no coastal state has adopted a comprehensive and detailed regime to regulate, manage, and oversee this new ocean use in state waters. This article examines various approaches taken by coastal states to facilitate existing and emerging ocean uses and recommends a regulatory framework for installing offshore wind turbines in state waters.

Regulatory capture by default: Offshore drilling for oil and gas

9 This article examines a form of regulatory capture that occurs when significant ambiguity exists 10 regarding the environmental protection standards for new types of activities in the marine 11 environment. To begin with, there is little research that categorizes the typologies of 12 regulatory capture despite the ubiquity of the phenomenon. After a discussion of theoretical 13 approaches to regulatory capture, I describe the operative definition and theory appropriate to 14 the situation related to authorization of oil and natural gas production in Israel following the 15 discovery of large offshore reserves in 2010. This approach, embodying several facets of 16 existing typologies, is applied to decisions made authorizing construction of the Gabriella 17 offshore exploratory drilling platform. The analysis highlights the nature of capture in the 18 absence of clear agency jurisdiction over new activities located in offshore environs organized 19 as temporal and spatial " vacuums ". I conclude that comprehensive marine spatial planning 20 would result in less capture and the development of more capture-resistant regulations.

Marine governance in an industrialised ocean: A case study of the emerging marine renewable energy industry

Marine Policy, 2015

The world's oceans are currently undergoing an unprecedented period of industrialisation, made possible by advances in technology and driven by our growing need for food, energy and resources. This is placing the oceans are under intense pressure, and the ability of existing marine governance frameworks to sustainably manage the marine environment is increasingly being called into question. Emerging industries are challenging all aspects of these frameworks, raising questions regarding ownership and rights of the sea and its resources, management of environmental impacts, and management of ocean space. This paper uses the emerging marine renewable energy (MRE) industry, particularly in the United Kingdom (UK), as a case study to introduce and explore some of the key challenges. The paper concludes that the challenges are likely to be extensive and argues for development of a comprehensive legal research agenda to advance both MRE technologies and marine governance frameworks.