Preventing a next Deepwater Horizon? - Evaluation of the regime for the prevention of and response to accidental oil spills from drilling platforms at the North Sea

Abstract

This thesis evaluates the regime for the prevention of and response to accidental oil spills from drilling platforms at the North Sea. The principal motivation for the research is the Deepwater Horizon oil spill that caused the greatest environmental disaster in U.S. history. The evaluation, which is split up into a prevention and a response component, focuses on the international regime and the national regimes of the Netherlands, Norway and the United Kingdom (UK). The methodology by means of which the evaluation is carried out consists of the development of evaluation criteria based on regime theory, disaster studies, the findings of the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, and the input of consulted experts. Guided by these criteria an assessment is made of the extent to which the regime at the North Sea is effective. The assessment takes into account the main laws and regulations that relate to the current topic as well as the way they work out in practice through the activities of key regime bodies. The opinions of consulted experts on the performance of the regime are central to the evaluation. The overall conclusion is that there is a reasonably effective regime, but a number of significant issues need to be resolved before we can speak of true effectiveness. The strengths of the regime are the goal setting nature of the laws and regulations, the high level of cooperation between involved actors and the efforts undertaken to learn from incidents like the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Weaknesses of the regime are the suboptimal harmonization between nations on a European level, the threat of budget cuts in the Netherlands and the UK, inadequate organization of oil spill response efforts in the Netherlands and the UK, and suboptimal transparency of the key supervisory regime body of the UK. The thesis concludes by presenting recommendations to address these weaknesses as well as opportunities for future research.