Dr Shapovalova’s paper has now been published. The paper is titled ‘International Governance of Oil Spills from Upstream Petroleum Activities in the Arctic: Response over Prevention?’ It examines the scope and application of relevant treaties in the prevention and response to oil spills in the Arctic waters. It argues that they are almost exclusively focused on response in general, and do not adequately address operating in Arctic conditions or prevention of oil spills. It further suggests that there is an increasing role for soft-law regional cooperation, such as the Arctic Council, in addressing these gaps. Read the full publication here.
A blog post based summarising the paper has now been published by the Arctic Institute, which is available here.