An Analysis of the Range of Approaches to Regulate Environmental Impacts Associated with the Upstream Petroleum Industry: What is the Most Effective Approach?

Various petroleum producing states have enacted laws to regulate its offshore industry. This is due to the fact that petroleum operations especially the upstream sector is fraught with risks of marine pollution although the industry is highly lucrative. An adoption of regulations is therefore dependent on some principles with the view of protecting the marine environment from pollution. This paper seeks to analyse the various approaches to environmental regulation, bringing out their strengths and shortfalls and to ascertain whether any one of the approaches is the most effective.