The Law of Energy Underground, by Donald N. Zillman, Aileen McHarg, Adrian Bradbrook and Lila Barrera‐Hernandez, published by Oxford University Press, 2014, 560pp., £85.00, hardback.

• Date: 01 April 2015
• Published date: 01 April 2015
• Author: Leonie Reins
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/reel.12104

ties are increasingly focused on

augmenting executive governance,

Sellar’s account of the problems

facing grassroots implementation

has particular resonance. It is a book

that deserves close attention from

those with a keen interest in the

CITES regime and the wider prob-

lems posed by environmental crime

– for as Sellar’s experiences attest,

there is no shortage of masked men,

yet silver bullets are in distinctly

scarce supply.

Richard Caddell

Utrecht University

The Law of Energy

Underground,byDonald N.

Zillman,Aileen McHarg,

Adrian Bradbrook and Lila

Barrera-Hernandez,

published by Oxford

University Press, 2014,

560pp., £85.00, hardback.

‘New’ underground technologies are

an essential element in reaching the

internationally agreed target to keep

global warming below two degrees

Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

The Fifth Assessment Report

of the Intergovernmental Panel on

Climate Change (IPCC) on climate

change mitigation, published in

2014, recognized the importance

of energy underground activities

as a so-called ‘bridge technology’

towards a low-carbon economy. The

report acknowledges the increase of

unconventional oil and gas produc-

tion as well as the related concerns

and problems,1and further high-

lights the increasing role of geother-

mal energy in certain countries.2It

refers to carbon capture and storage

(CCS) as a technology to ‘reduce the

adverse effect of mitigation on the

value of fossil fuels’3and considers

the issue of nuclear energy and

especially the waste disposal as a

challenge.4

In addition, United States President

Barack Obama and Chinese Presi-

dent Xi Jinping surprised the world

in November 2014 with a joint

announcement on climate change.5

Both heads of State announced that

they intend to ‘[strengthen] their

policy dialogue and practical coop-

eration, including cooperation on

advanced coal technologies, nuclear

energy, shale gas and renewable

energy’.6They also refer to concrete

measures on CCS in the form of the

‘[e]stablishment of a major new

carbon storage project based in

China through an international

public-private consortium led by

the United States and China to

intensively study and monitor

carbon storage using industrial

[carbon dioxide]’.7These are only

two examples of the many initia-

tives at an international level. The

publication of The Law of Energy

Underground therefore presents a

timely opportunity to address these

pressing energy issues from a legal

perspective.

The Law of Energy Underground

is the seventh volume in a book

series dealing with the regulation

of energy and related issues. The

editors managed to collect a broad

range of authors from all over the

world. The technologies addressed

by the individual contributions

are just as broad-ranging as the

number of jurisdictions covered,

and include unconventional oil and

gas extraction, CCS, nuclear and

geothermal energy and under-

ground electricity infrastructure.

The suggested audience includes

legal practitioners, academics and

students of energy law and policy.

The challenge in addressing such a

diverse group of readers at the

same time is well managed, as the

overall structure of the book first

provides an overview of energy

underground (Parts I and II) and

then focuses on specific issues of

interest on a topical or jurisdic-

tional basis (Parts III to V).

Regardless of which technology is

in issue, three key aspects are gen-

erally important in the regulatory

framework and are addressed in

most contributions: ownership of

the resource; control of exploration

and extraction; and environmental

protection concerns, including

public participation.

The editors, in the first chapter, set

the scene by providing a concise

overview of the past, present and

future of the law on energy under-

ground, as well as the challenges

and emerging questions that are to

be tackled in the volume. Emphasis

is put on the increasing internation-

alization of underground energy

law, and the interaction between

the international and national levels

in this regard.

Part I of the book discusses the

various forms of ownership of

energy underground in civil and

common law jurisdictions. Barton

describes the emergence and devel-

opment of the cujus et solum doc-

trine and related exceptions in

common law. He connects and

applies longstanding principles of

common law to new problems of

subsurface ownership, and, as with

most chapters in this part, illus-

trates the move away from private

to public ownership. Daintith

complements the Commonwealth

picture with an American perspec-

tive, explaining the main principles

(and related concepts) of accession,

severability and dominance and the

law or rule of capture in United

States mining law. The legal chal-

1O. Edenhofer et al. (eds.), Climate Change

2014: Mitigation of Climate Change – Contri-

bution of Working Group III to the Fifth

Assessment, Report of the Intergovernmen-

tal Panel on Climate Change (Cambridge

University Press, 2014), at 549 and 551.

2Ibid., at 529.

3Ibid., at 462.

4Ibid., at 531.

5US-China Joint Announcement on Climate

Change, Beijing, China (12 November 2014),

found at: <http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-

press-office/2014/11/11/us-china-joint-

announcement-climate-change>.

6Ibid.

7Ibid.

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Review of European Community & International Environmental Law

RECIEL 24 (1) 2015 Book Reviews

© 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

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