The International Law of Energy (Cambridge Studies in International and Comparative Law, Series Number 164)

The world's energy structure underpins the global environmental crisis and changing it will require regulatory change at a massive level. Energy is highly regulated in international law, but the field has never been comprehensively mapped. The legal sources on which the governance of energy is based are plentiful but they are scattered across a vast legal expanse. This book is the first single-authored study of the international law of energy as a whole. Written by a world-leading expert, it provides a comprehensive account of the international law of energy and analyses the implications of the ongoing energy transformation for international law. The study combines conceptual and doctrinal analysis of all the main rules, processes and institutions to consider the past, present and likely future of global energy governance. Providing a solid foundation for teaching, research and practice, this book addresses both the theory and real-world policy dimension of the international law of energy. "There are many drivers of the epoch-defining environmental crisis that the biosphere - and humankind as part of it - faces today, as we embark on the critical 2020-2030 decade. The main one, by many accounts, is the reliance by one species, humans, on a certain form of energy, derived from fossil fuels, as the backbone of their modern conception of 'civilisation'. Burning fossil fuels is not only at the roots of the environmental crisis, but at the foundations of how humans produce shelter, heat, food, transportation and most of their cultural products, including technology. From the narrow lenses of the social practice we call international law, energy may appear as a sub-topic, alongside so many others. In reality, international law is but one aspect of a wider order shaped, since the dawn of the so-called 'Industrial Revolution' in the late 18th century, by fossil fuel energy. Rather than a mere 'branch' of the narrow social practice of international law, it is international law which is an aspect of an energy order, a historical socio-technical regime. This socio-technical regime is, however, not like its predecessors. The fossil fuel-based order has come to encompass, by its Earth-shaping effects, the entire biosphere, including humanity. And we now understand that it challenges a much more profound layer of 'regulation', a resilient but threatened biospheric balance that was, for centuries, taken for granted"-- Provided by the publisher "There are many drivers of the epoch-defining environmental crisis that the biosphere - and humankind as part of it - faces today, as we embark on the critical 2020-2030 decade. The main one, by many accounts, is the reliance by one species, humans, on a certain form of energy, derived from fossil fuels, as the backbone of their modern conception of 'civilisation'. Burning fossil fuels is not only at the roots of the environmental crisis, but at the foundations of how humans produce shelter, heat, food, transportation and most of their cultural products, including technology. From the narrow lenses of the social practice we call international law, energy may appear as a sub-topic, alongside so many others. In reality, international law is but one aspect of a wider order shaped, since the dawn of the so-called 'Industrial Revolution' in the late XVIII Century, by fossil fuel energy. Rather than a mere 'branch' of the narrow social practice of international law, it is international law which is an aspect of an energy order, a historical socio-technical regime. This socio-technical regime is, however, not like its predecessors. The fossil fuel-based order has come to encompass, by its Earth-shaping effects, the entire biosphere, including humanity. And we now understand that it challenges a much more profound layer of 'regulation', a resilient but threatened biospheric balance that was, for centuries, taken for granted"-- Provided by publisher As the first single-authored general account of the international law of energy, written by a leading authority and covering all the main rules, processes and institutions, this book will be of significant interest to undergraduate and graduate students, researchers and practitioners of international law, international relations and energy policy. Copyright_page Dedication Contents Figures Tables Preface Abbreviations Instruments Cases Introduction 1 Energy in International Law 2 Foundational Approach 3 Foundational Approach 4 Ad Hoc Approach 5 Ad Hoc Approach 6 Centralised Approach: Nuclear Energy 7 Centralised Approach 8 International Law and the Energy Transformation Conclusion Index