Journal of Energy & Natural Resources Law (JERL)

Governments around the world are looking to ensure their transition to full low-carbon economies whilst tackling climate change by implementing offshore carbon capture and storage (CCS) – a method of permanently removing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the burning of fossil fuels and burying it deep below the seabed in suitable geological formations. Among the main targets of such geological formations are depleted, or nearly depleted, offshore oil and gas reservoirs within existing oil-producing fields.

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This article explores the trade-offs in the decarbonisation of the energy sector by analysing the legal arguments in favour of and against hydropower in EU law. It contends that the EU regimes in climate, energy and environmental law each value the advantages and disadvantages of energy production in different ways. In contrasting the approaches in these three areas of EU law, the article analyses how EU law governs the decarbonisation process in the context of hydropower. The analysis reveals a promising opportunity to reconcile the friction among climate, energy and environmental law while improving the ecological sustainability of hydropower production.

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Development of a hydrogen economy as part of the response to the challenges especially of climate change and energy security will depend upon the solution not only of technical problems, but also of legal and regulatory problems. Whereas these are most obviously related to health and safety, this paper focuses on the fact that support for hydrogen is increasingly contingent upon the method of its production and specifically upon the level of greenhouse gas emissions involved. The paper examines emerging arrangements in Australia and the EU as examples of likely future key hydrogen exporters and importers, respectively.

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Investors are increasingly resorting to investor–state dispute settlement (ISDS) clauses in investment treaties between states, claiming compensation for the financial impact of state regulatory action to address pressing natural resources, energy and other environmental problems. This trend is controversial, triggering calls for reform of the ISDS system. But reform will not happen overnight. In the meantime, ISDS claims need to be managed. This article analyses how best to resolve investor–state disputes in natural resources, energy and other environmental cases. This article builds on an article published in a previous issue of this journal, ‘Investor–state dispute settlement in natural resources, energy and environmental cases’, which examined the nature, history and types of investor–state disputes in environmental cases; the controversies ISDS claims have attracted; and the calls for reform of the ISDS system. This issue examines the available dispute resolution processes and how they can be organised and conducted to best resolve these disputes. It does so by characterising the fuss of ISDS claims, building on the earlier article, and then analysing the possible forums and forms of resolving the fuss.

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This commentary aims to frame human rights due diligence as a key instrument in risk management of a mining company with a focus on Chile. To this end, we analyse the challenges faced by the industry in a scenario of clean energy development that involves a high demand for minerals such as copper and lithium. It is concluded that human rights due diligence is a requirement for exporting products to certain markets, serves to improve the reputation of companies, and can be an important instrument for risk-management decisions in the mining industry.

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This commentary focuses on the importance of recognising the rights of the Aymara and Quechua peoples to benefit from the lithium industry. It analyses the sources of international law and Bolivian constitutional law that recognise the rights of indigenous peoples to natural resources. It makes the case for implementing the right to economic development of indigenous peoples. It highlights the legal and ethical obligations of the Bolivian government and transnational corporations to invest their profits, from the exploitation of lithium, in social and economic projects to remedy unjust exploitations of natural resources and the labour force of indigenous peoples.

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For several decades, climate science has illustrated the alarming risks of climate change and the growing need to act to respond to its detrimental effects.Footnote1 Arguably as long, states have been debating who has the responsibility to act and how the obligations attached to this responsibility should be understood.

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Almost a decade after Helen Cook delivered the first edition of The Law of Nuclear Energy, the third edition of this successful book was published by Sweet & Maxwell in 2022. The book arrived in a period of a renewed interest in nuclear power worldwide.

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