Decommissioning of oil and gas facilities off the east coast of Canada: an analysis based on the international legal context and regulatory decision-making theory.

Abstract

 “This thesis examines the decision-making regimes currently in place off the coasts of the provinces of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia to determine how these regimes account for the spillover costs associated with the decommissioning of offshore oil and gas facilities.

This thesis addresses four dominant theories of regulatory decision-making to determine and develop various criteria used to evaluate the current regimes. This thesis also explores how decommissioning is addressed through various requirements under international law.

This thesis reviews the current regimes in the context of these criteria and in the context of the current international legal framework, and concludes with a number of suggestions as to how the current regulatory decision-making regimes can be improved to both meet these criteria and Canada's obligations under international law.”