IMPLEMENTATION OF RESPONSIBILITY IN CASE OF OIL SPILLS AND OTHER ACCIDENTS ON THE TRANSBOUNDARY FIELDS

INTRODUCTION. The authors of the article analyze the contemporaneous issues of international responsibility for transboundary harm in connection with oil field exploitation such as the definition of transboundary harm and criteria of such harm. The practice of implementation of responsibility in case of an accident on the transboundary oil fields is also considered.

MATERIALS AND METHODS. In the process of development of the article, the authors referred to academic papers of Russian and foreign scholars and researchers in the sphere of international environmental law and domestic environmental law; materials of the UN International Law Commission, state practice, media materials, and documents prepared by the transboundary fields' developers. The authors used such general scientific and specific methods as a method of analysis and synthesis, the method of induction, the comparative method.

RESEARCH RESULTS. The article contains conclusions on particular issues of implementation of responsibility for transboundary environmental harm and includes analysis of the influence of such issues to the cases of oil spills and other accidents on transboundary fields. The authors refer to oil spills accidents in the Gulf of Mexico, the Caspian Sea and the North Sea as bright examples of such implementation.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS. As a result of the conducted research, the authors highlighted criteria of transboundary harm. The authors make a conclusion on the prevalence of application of the national civil law mechanism of responsibility implementation in case of oil spills and other accidents on transboundary fields.

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