A Study Of Governance Of Oil Spill Disasters In Indian Waters

Abstract

Marine oil spill disasters may not touch everybody all the time, but when they do, the impact could be newlinelasting, if the national structure for their governance is ill- conceived. Incidentally, the concept of oil newlinespill governance itself has not received a lot of scholarly attention, possibly owing to its episodic newlinenature, though some scholars observe that oil spill research is a rapidly expanding field with a growth newlinerate faster than that of science as a whole. newlineThe objective of this dissertation is to understand the relationship between governance of oil spill newlinedisasters in a State and the corresponding potential for externalities alongside the transposition of newlineexternalities by hegemonies onto other States through the structure of international regimes. newlineThe study spans three interdependent levels t he regime, programmes and mechanisms at the newlinei newlinenternational level; the law, policy and governance at the national level and the coastal State level, as newlineapplicable; and norms, practices and implementation at the local organisational level. newlineThe research setting comprises States party to the relevant international regimes including the newlineMARPOL Convention, OPRC Convention, and IOPC fund, tanker shipping in the Arabian Sea, ports newlineand port facilities, single point moorings, and offshore installations and stakeholders across newlinegovernment and industry. newlineThis dissertation is guided by the various theoretical approaches to governance and its strong interplay newlinewith regime theory and particularly focused on the systematic externalities approach. Critical newlineexploration of the various disaster frameworks and their limitations yielded the conceptual framework newlinefor the research and its operationalisation. newlineThe empirical study focuses on agents that contribute to negative externality and includes both, the newlineproviders and receivers of oil spill governance comprising of the IMO and national regulators on the newlineone hand and the oil and shipping industry, and ports on the other. newlineA specifically designed Oil Spill Governance Questionnaire was administered to determine the newlinereadiness of the ports and oil companies, their willingness to pay and discern their views on oil spill newlinegovernance at national level. The subjective questions were administered to the providers of oil spill newlinegovernance. Focus Group Discussion and Personal Interviews were built on the questionnaire survey newlineto make inferences on the state of oil spill governance at the company level, coastal state level, and newlinethe national level. newlineThe study is pertinent since an account of how externalities are generated and sustained is needed to newlinecomplete a theory of them, given that in their absence, the externalities cannot be explained. The newlinestudy argues that at the more fundamental level, negative externalities are a product of not merely newlineinstitutional failure at the national level, as portrayed by contemporary studies in economics, but a newlineconsequence of hegemonic actions of a group, or club, of nations working in cohort at the newlineinternational level. newlineKey words: Governance, externality, regime, disasters, oil spill newline