An analysis of the deficiencies impeding regulation of environmental standards in the Nigeran oil and gas industry and possible solutions through legal transplantation from other model regimes.

Chuks-Ezike, Chukwuemeka

Abstract

Oil and gas resource exploitation has hugely contributed to Nigeria's revenue. This is therefore an important contributor to the Nigerian economy. Nigerian oil and gas business has been mainly facilitated by multinational and indigenous oil companies operating in the industry. The study regards them as participants in the industry. It is noteworthy that this study will refer to company and corporation as one and the same entity. It has been observed that some oil and gas companies operating in Nigeria have clearly violated regulatory standards established in the Nigerian environmental regime. It has further been observed that the violations are repeated and persistent in nature. This is interesting considering that the Nigerian environmental regime has provided criminal sanctions (as a regulatory tool) to prohibit a violation of such standards and stipulates penalties that can be imposed for such violations. Moreover, other relevant regulatory administrative enforcement mechanisms have been established in relevant legislation to enforce the standards. Hence, the regime has established enforcement agencies to carry out the enforcement. The persistent violations therefore, show evidence that the Nigerian regime has failed to utilise criminal sanctioning and administrative enforcement to prevent or control violations of environmental standards, hence has been unable to guarantee the required compliance. This study therefore, seeks to identify deficiencies in the regime that have limited its utilisation of these regulatory options to ensure compliance with the standards. Beyond seeking to identify these deficiencies, this study will explore the UK and USA regimes towards identifying aspects of their criminal sanctioning and regulatory enforcement that could inspire a correction to the non-performance of the Nigerian regime.

Citation

CHUKS-EZIKE, C. 2020. An analysis of the deficiencies impeding regulation of environmental standards in the Nigeran oil and gas industry and possible solutions through legal transplantation from other model regimes. Robert Gordon University, PhD thesis. Hosted on OpenAIR [online]. Available from: https://openair.rgu.ac.uk

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Mar 8, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 8, 2021
• Keywords: Environmental law; Oil and gas industry; Oil and gas production; Oil and gas regulation; Pollution; Nigeria
• Public URL: https://rgu-repository.worktribe.com/output/1254518
• Award Date: Jun 30, 2020