Tina Soliman Hunter, Jørnn Øyrehagen Sunde and Ernst Nordtveit (eds.), The Character of Petroleum Licences – A Legal Culture Analysis (Cheltenham: E. Elgar, 2020)

Abstract

The Character of Petroleum Licences – A Legal Culture Analysis is the sixth book in the Edward Elgar’s “New Horizons in Environmental and Energy Law” series. It revisits the original study into the legal character of petroleum licenses in the relation between the licensor and licensee as of Daintith’s 1981 monograph The Legal Character of Petroleum Licences: A Comparative Study (University of Dundee, Centre for Petroleum and Mineral Law Studies, ISBN: 0906343089), and it looks at how it has been developed since then. The book incorporates not only the original jurisdictions – Australia, Canada, Norway and the UK – but also those of USA, the Netherlands, Uganda, Russia, Mexico and China. The introduction chapter pays attention to the fact that although the term “legal character” has been used in the 1981 monograph, little attention has been paid to its difference with regard to “legal culture”, which considers that politics, economy and law are intertwined, and displays the characteristics and internal relationships of the reviewed petroleum regimes.