Environmental and Natural Resources Law

Alberta energy law and policy rarely generates consensus between the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, the United Farmers of Alberta, other landowners, Indigenous peoples, environmental groups, the Alberta Energy Regulator ("AER"), Alberta Energy, and Alberta's Freehold Owners Association. However, none of these groups are happy with the fallout from the Alberta Court of Appeal's ("ABCA") decision in Orphan Well Association v Grant Thornton Limited ("Redwater"). The reason for concern is that Redwater has punched a hole in the AER's strategy to help ensure upstream operators provide for proper abandonment of old oil and gas wells.

The Supreme Court of Canada ("SCC") heard the AER's appeal in February 2018. Some believe that Justice Martin's dissenting opinion in the ABCA judgment in Redwater may provide a better path, but even those individuals who sympathize with its conclusion believe her reasoning "may be reaching too far". This detailed article offers an alternative path, which is based on the proper application of the doctrine of federal paramountcy in this context.

The doctrine of federal paramountcy states that if there is a conflict between two pieces of legitimately legislated law, and if one is provincial and the other is federal, the provincial law is inoperative to the extent that the two laws are incompatible. A classic example of such incompatibility is when a citizen must violate one of the two laws to comply with the other. "Co- operative federalism" guides the courts' application of this doctrine. This constitutional principle asks courts to adopt a "strict definition" of "conflict", allowing each level of government the flexibility to engage in pragmatic alignments. Courts are supposed to allow room for modern governance, which often requires multilevel governmental function. In other words, co-operative federalism is a constitutional principle that adds flexibility to the "watertight compartments" view of federal and provincial powers, which has been an essential part of Canada's constitutional structure since its inception.

Part II will explain the federal paramountcy test and the key precedents for its application to Redwater. Part III will apply the federal paramountcy test to Redwater. Part IV will conclude, offering some final reflections on the doctrine of federal paramountcy.

On February 15, 2018, the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) considered oral arguments in Orphan Well Association v. Grant Thornton Limited (Grant Thornton). Initially, the Court of Queen's Bench of Alberta determined that the Alberta Energy Regulator's (AER) regulatory framework for reclamation and abandonment of oil and gas wells was ultra vires to the extent that it conflicted with the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, a decision affirmed by the Alberta Court of Appeal in 2017. The effect of Grant Thornton is to allow trustees in bankruptcy, who are administering the estate of insolvent oil and gas companies, to disclaim an insolvent's worthless well assets (e.g., non-producing wells where the abandonment and reclamation process is not yet complete), while selling its valuable well assets (e.g., producing wells). The judgment allows secured creditors the best chance possible to be compensated from the bankrupt's assets, while leaving Alberta's oil and gas industry (and potentially the Albertan taxpayer) to pay the cost for the bankrupt's reclamation and abandonment obligations. It has opened the floodgates for bankruptcies, as creditors push financially distressed companies through the bankruptcy process before the SCC issues its judgment, and potentially changes the law This article provides an analysis of the case to date, but does not hazard a guess as to the ultimate holding. Rather, it will focus upon four of the case's key constitutional issues: the doctrine of interjurisdictional immunity (IJI); the doctrine of federal paramountcy (federal paramountcy); the principle of cooperative federalism (cooperative federalism); and, the ''disinterested regulator " defence. Each of these issues impact Canadian energy federalism. Canadian energy federalism is the compact between provinces and the federal government, which designates the rights and responsibilities associated with Canadian energy resource production, management, and transport. Part 2 provides some background for understanding the case. Part 3 sketches the AER's current regulatory framework for abandoning, remediating, and reclaiming wells (regulatory framework). Part 4 analyzes the constitutional issues outlined above. Finally, Part 5 offers some concluding thoughts about outstanding issues in Grant Thornton not addressed in this article, and then reflects upon the impacts that this pending judgment will have upon Alberta's efforts to reform its current regulatory framework.

This thesis examines the law and policy concerning renewable energy electricity generation in Palestine, Jordan, and Abu Dhabi. The thesis gives greater attention to the promotion of solar power owing to the abundance and viability. It appears that energy security profoundly underpins the utilisation of renewable electricity, and the motivation of climate change mitigation also pays a role in the promotion of renewable energy in these jurisdictions. However, current policies and regulations are not fully able to promote the renewables in the power sector. The thesis submits that reforms of law and policy are necessary to enhance the achievement of environmental and energy goals.

Довідник захищених дисертацій на здобуття наукового ступеня кандидата і доктора юридичних наук за спеціальністю 12.00.06 «Земельне право; екологічне право; природноресурсове право» в Україні (1991- 2013 рр.) : довід. / укл., передмова, вступ І. І. Каракаш, Т. Р. Короткий, Н. В. Хендель. – Одеса : Фенікс, 2014. – 142 с.

The extractives industry is one of the biggest contributors to the economies of most developing countries the world over. The contribution of minerals into the Kenyan economy has been gradually increasing in the recent times. However, with the recent commercial oil finds in Turkana, it is expected that the contribution of extractives within the Kenyan economy is expected to increase phenomenally.

Whereas the expected oil exports are expected to offer a boost to the overall economy, members of the Turkana community will also have their own fair share of expectations about the oil resources. The delicate balance between the national expectations vis-à-vis the local community’s interests is achieved through benefit-sharing. However, in order to implement a sound benefit-sharing programme, a country needs to adopt a holistic approach to the local community’s challenges.

This paper argues that benefit-sharing ought not to be an exclusive legal issue. It ought to deal with the relevant social, economic and political factors which affect the community. For instance, in the context of the Turkana community, the relevant issues requiring to be dealt with include the social, economic marginalisation of the area, educational disparities, and poor infrastructure, among others. In case a country fails to deal with these issues, then any legal prescriptions attempting to implement benefit-sharing will, no doubt, fail miserably.

Policy debates on the rights and international status of climate refugees, environmental migrants, or environmentally displaced persons have unleashed detailed scholarly commentaries over the last decade, and virtually all standpoints have been scrutinized in literature already. Nevertheless, one aspect of this debate has gone somewhat off the radar in recent years: the (co-)responsibilities of incorporated subsidiaries of transnational corporations in triggering or exacerbating pseudo-environmentally motivated mass-movements of workers and related strata of the populations domiciled where these corporations operate. Despite such neglect, mentioned exploitative occurrences only increased in recent years, and the trend speaks for their further expansion as globalization complexifies, world population increases, and climate disruption worsens. Against this backdrop of urgency, it seems essential to rediscover this angle of the debate; that is, to revitalize ethical and legal discourses on private actors and what intervention should be required of the international community in order for transnational corporations to take action and observe minimal standards of environmental good practice, especially in corporate policy areas bearing a direct impact on labor conditions, social development, and ultimately on the pulling or restraining factors of migration. The first international binding Treaty on business and human rights, currently being negotiated in Geneva within the United Nations Human Rights Council and apparently close to finalization, builds exactly on these concerns. In each of its 2018 Zero Draft, 2019 Revised Draft, 2020 Second Revised Draft, and 2021 Third Revised Draft, the Treaty provides protection to those workers and their families who are factually deprived of their lands due to corporate soil exploitation. In this sense, the problem will manifest itself under the new (yet not so new) terms of distinguishing between migrations fully caused or simply catalyzed or facilitated by localized environmental pollution and/or largescale climate-change-related phenomena. Pursuant to this new covenant, States would be compelled to ensure that companies operating within their prescriptive jurisdiction respect all human rights. Eventually, while this Treaty should generally be welcomed as it sheds new light on business-caused environmental migrations and it decompartmentalizes related human rights, its current formulation might not significantly contribute to the clarification of certain definitions. Most perplexingly, it does not establish a straightforward legal distinction between environmental migrations induced or 'simply' precipitated by corporate misconduct.

Petroleum producing countries are plagued by corrupt and authoritarian governments, lopsided and unsustainable economic development and at most times, though not necessarily always, violent conflict. This is a concomitant of the fact that foreign powers and huge multi-national companies often maneuver for control of the oil fields through clandestine operations or outright military intervention. Additionally, dissatisfied rebels challenge governments in hope of winning a share of the lucrative oil revenues which makes conflict the foregone conclusion. Environmental damage is also not a remote result, to wit boundary disputes with adjoining states.
It is alongside this unpleasant global experience that Uganda “the Pearl of Africa” discovers oil viable for commercial exploitation. However the greatest question of the day becomes whether this oil shall be a blessing or curse for Uganda. In this essay I have found it apposite to canvass the conceptual meaning of petroleum and oil, the significance of oil as a Centre of global controversy, the implications of oil for Uganda as a growing economy, escaping the resource curse: oil and conflict, and recommendations that should be embraced to obviate these oil related conflicts.

Tensions had been simmering since the 1990s between Alberta’s oil and gas regulator, now called the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER), and the insolvency community. Its members regarded bankruptcy as a private matter between insolvent parties and their creditors. Moreover, to the degree that government intervention was ever necessary, Parliament – not the provinces – had the authority to do so. The AER saw things differently, regarding the proper abandonment and reclamation of oil and gas sites as one of its key mandates and a duty to be addressed prior to obligations to creditors. The AER’s position was consistent with a 1991 Alberta Court of Appeal decision which found that serving the public interest in this manner was not subject to the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act (BIA).

The paper examines the international law principle of the permanent sovereignty over natural resources from a critical perspective of its conflict with demands for global environmental protection and sustainability. It is argued that state framed resource sovereignty per se does not represent an obstacle in the path of greater global environmental justice. The principle is strongly justified as a distinct economic expression of post-war state sovereignty and the ramification of the universalization of such principles as decolonization, self-determination, territorial rights, and sovereign equality of states. It is instead the interpretation of sovereignty and the set of practices established in the name of permanent sovereignty over natural resources that undermine international environmental law – the extension of sovereign resource rights beyond state borders, the continuous priority of unrestricted resource rights and development rights over international standards for environmen...

The presentation summarises the conceptual framework for investment and contractual issues in environmental resources such as land, mining, pertroleum, energy and biological resources in Malawi. It analyses the role of the common law and international treaties in shaping investment and contracting decisions and the extent tow which Malawi policy and legislation and legislation serves the interests of the people of Malawi.

Presentation explores the concept of human rights and constitutional rights-based approaches to environmental protection, which is part of the first global report by the UN Environment on Environmental Rule of Law (2091).

The concepts are discussed along with case laws on how Rights-based approach works as a safety net to safeguards environmental rights of the people.

Key authors of Report: Carl Bruch, Scott Schang, John Pendergrass, Scott Fulton, Nora Moraga-Lewy, Merideth Wright, and Greta Swanson