Eight studentships will be awarded across 4 topic areas to commence in academic years 2012-13 and 2013-14. The studentships are a joint initiative of two active research centres within the School of Law: the Centre for Energy Law (Director, Professor John Paterson) and the Rural Law Research Group (Co-director, Dr Aylwin Pillai). Both centres provide a vibrant and active research environment for staff and students and present opportunities for student's to participate in academic research and discussion with policy-makers through centre-led conferences, workshops and seminars such as, for example, the Rural Law conference on Managing Scotland's Natural Resources to be held in autumn 2013. Each project draws on the expertise of experienced staff within the fields of energy and environmental law.
The School of Law invites high quality proposals falling under four topic areas. The topic areas and examples of the types of projects that would be considered are:
1. Innovation, marine planning and delivery: regulatory intersections in offshore renewable energy
While the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 and Marine (Scotland) Act 2010 seek to establish a single point of entry for offshore renewable energy developments through a marine spatial planning regime, other forms of regulation remain relevant to the ability of such developments to deliver the expected benefits. Thus, regulation encouraging innovation and investment (including, consents, licensing and infrastructure), energy regulation, and health, safety and environmental regulation, all need to be taken into account.
The key aim of the project is to raise awareness among policymakers, the business community and environmental activists of the potential for such conflicts and to involve them in the identification of new forms of regulation and collaboration to facilitate greater renewable energy activity. Two projects to explore the extent to which there can be conflicts between the different areas of regulation and look for possible solutions will be funded: one focusing on Scotland and the UK and one on the EU.
2. Conflicting green interests in European species protection and renewable energy development
Renewable energy developments (onshore and offshore) can have significant impacts directly on protected species and on protected habitats. The Birds and Habitats Directives, and the requirement for Environmental Impact Assessment, demands a thorough examination and balancing of the interests at stake. As a result project approval procedures are heavily influenced by species protection law. The research will examine the extent to which the development of on and offshore renewable energy projects is hampered or limited by the protection afforded to European protected species under the European Habitats and Birds Directives.
The extent to which species protection may present a barrier to renewable development depends upon how European species protection is understood and implemented at national level, although the flexibility for interpretation is restricted by rulings of the ECJ. This project will compare the legal and institutional approaches to conflicts between species protection and renewable energy development in selected European case study countries (e.g. UK, Germany, Spain) by analysing the implementation of the species protection under the Birds and Habitats Directive and the implications for renewable energy development.
As Scotland seeks to reach its 100% renewable electricity target by the large scale deployment of offshore renewable energy schemes, finding the balance between species protection and renewable energy development (as a measure for economic development and climate change mitigation) is of topical concern. The project will highlight best practice from the European case studies that can be applied in the context of Scottish approvals and will make recommendations for reform where this is necessary.
3. Contested Waters in the Context of Offshore Energy Development
The vast majority of international territorial boundaries are clearly established. The same cannot be said for international maritime boundaries. The notion of international maritime boundaries is a relatively recent one (insofar as the concept of the continental shelf only found legal expression in international law in 1958 and the most developed formulation of the various maritime zones in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea only came into force in 1994). In many respects, the need for neighbouring coastal states to consider where such a boundary might lie only arises when there is something at stake—most often the suspected presence of hydrocarbon reservoirs.
While many countries have been able to reach agreement on boundaries relatively easily, others have referred their disputes to tribunals, such as the International Court of Justice or the Permanent Court of Arbitration. Such cases have often been very lengthy and complex—so much so, that some countries have developed new international legal instruments, Joint Development Agreements, to allow economic development to go ahead, even while the boundary dispute remains unresolved. Third party dispute resolution and joint development appear unable, however, to respond to some of the most intractable and potentially most dangerous boundary disagreements.
The East and South China Seas and the Eastern Mediterranean are all locations of disagreements, where the traditional legal approaches appear less attractive to some of the actors involved, than the use of force. The project will focus on one of these disputes (or alternatively look for common features across two or more) in order to understand the limitations of existing legal solutions and to identify the direction in which new legal solutions might lie.
4. Health, Safety and Environmental Challenges of Offshore Energy Developments
The occurrence of a series of high-profile offshore accidents involving loss of life and/or environmental damage across the globe in recent years (Montara, Macondo, Campos Basin, Bonga), has initiated an unprecedented examination of the architecture and orientation of health, safety and environmental regulation in a range of jurisdictions. States with long experience of offshore hydrocarbons argue for a goal-setting regulatory model, whilst policy makers dealing with the industry for the first time (whether directly or indirectly as a trans-boundary threat) appear unconvinced by anything other than detailed prescriptive regulation.
Whilst these arguments are conducted in sometimes heated terms, the challenges of health, safety and environmental regulation in relation to offshore renewable energy sources receive much less attention. The safety and environmental risks associated with volatile and polluting hydrocarbons are evident, but the apparent benignity of renewable technologies may mask problems. What health and safety arrangements are in place for the installation and maintenance of offshore renewable technologies? How are the environmental impacts of windfarms and tidal energy installations assessed, when there may be a dearth of relevant data? What arrangements are in place to ensure safe and clean operations where different offshore industries may require access to the same areas?
The 21st century rush to install offshore renewable technologies may appear to have a quite different character to the 20th century rush to install offshore oil and gas platforms, but the lessons of inadequate consideration of the uncertainties have not obviously been learned. Four projects will be supported to examine the current questions relating to the interface between health, safety and environmental regulation for a range of offshore energy developments and to consider the future knowledge exchange mechanisms to enable the development of an effective regulatory architecture and orientation for the challenges ahead on an increasingly crowded and complex continental shelf.
Deadline: 8th of March 2013