The Agreement on Cooperation on Marine Oil Pollution Preparedness and Response in the Arctic
Permanent link
https://hdl.handle.net/10037/6629Date
2014-06-01Type
Master thesisMastergradsoppgave
Author
Rise, Ingvild HoelAbstract
This is a case study of the establishment of an oil spill response regime in the Arctic region.
The context is the work of the Arctic Council and the development of the Agreement on
Cooperation on Marine Oil Pollution Preparedness and Response in the Arctic. Three
research topics are studied; regime, response system and the role of politics and professions.
The Arctic oil spill response agreement is outlined first, and the principles, norms, rules and
decision making procedures that it establishes for the oil spill response regime are analyzed.
It is found that the Agreement mostly consists of principles and rules for procedures since it is
a legal document; the Agreement is however creating a framework for the establishment of a
regime. The second part is concerned about the response system. The bilateral and
multilateral oil spill response agreements in the region are the fundament for the oil spill
response in the Arctic (AC, 2013a: 11). For the regime to be successful it is important for
these to be compatible (Tuler, Seager & Kay, 2007: 34). The agreements are analyzed with
the use of elements from the command and control model and the problem solving model to
evaluate to what extent they are compatible (Dynes, 1994). The problem solving model, from
the chapter on response system, salutes cooperation between agencies and the personal
contact which this type of cooperation encourage. So this might be seen as a positive feature
of the Arctic Council’s institutional framework. The agreements are to a relatively large
extent compatible. The most important deviations were the sign of centralization in the
Canadian-Danish cooperation, and the emphasis on cooperation within research. The third
part addresses the noteworthy presence of professionals in the development of the Agreement
on Cooperation on Marine Oil Pollution Preparedness and Response in the Arctic. Interview
data and meeting reports form the empirical material for the analysis of the role of politics and
professions in the regime formation. The regime is studied in three stages of regime
formation; agenda formation, negotiation and operationalization (Young, 1998). While the
political level found it necessary to develop an oil spill response regime after the Deepwater
Horizon accident, the negotiation stage of the regime formation were a close cooperation
between representatives from national ministries and of oil spill response experts. Further, it
is the professional’s responsibility to prepare, recommend and maintain the development of
the oil spill response agreements, operational guidelines, and contingency plans, and they are
thereby to a large extent responsible for the operationalization of the regime.
Publisher
UiT Norges arktiske universitetUiT The Arctic University of Norway
Metadata
Show full item recordCollections
Copyright 2014 The Author(s)
The following license file are associated with this item: