Marine Environmental Protection and Transboundary Pipeline Projects: A Case Study of the Nord Stream Pipeline

• Author: Alexander Lott
• Position: LLM student in Public International Law at the Utrecht University School of Law
• Pages: 55-67

Marine Environmental Protection and Transboundary Pipeline

Projects: A Case Study of the Nord Stream Pipeline

Alexander Lott

Merkourios 2011 – Volume 27/Issue 73, Article, pp. 55-67.

URN: NBN:NL:UI:10-1-100933

ISSN: 0927-460X

URL: www.merkourios.org

Publisher: Igitur, Utrecht Publishing & Archiving Services

Copyright: this work has been licensed by the Creative Commons Attribution License (3.0)

Keywords

Nord Stream, Submarine Pipelines, Baltic Sea, UNCLOS, Espoo Convention, Transboundary EIA, Marine Scientic Re-

search, Marine Pollution, Marine Environmental Protection.

Abstract

e Nord Stream transboundary submarine pipeline, signicant for its impact on the EU energy policy, has been a heav-

ily debated issue in the Baltic Sea region during the past decade. is is partly due to the concerns over the eects that the

pipeline might have on the Baltic Sea as a particularly sensitive large marine ecosystem.

is manuscript focuses on the issue from the viewpoint of the UNCLOS legal framework and its related treaties. It thus

illustrates some of the more polemical topics arising in modern law of the sea and environmental law, eg limitations on the

freedom to lay submarine pipelines, the scope and boundaries of marine scientic research, the obligation to consider alter-

natives in the course of an EIA. In broader terms, this manuscript presents an explanatory study of matters mostly related to

sustainable development, the precautionary principle and the ecosystem approach.

Author Aliations

LLM student in Public International Law at the Utrecht University School of Law.

Article

Merkourios - International and European Environmental Law - Vol. 27/73 55