Unsustainable practices worldwide in energy production and consumption have led to a plethora of environmental problems. Until recently environmental law largely overlooked the relevance of energy production and consumption; energy was seen to be of little significance to the advancement of sustainable development. This has changed since 2000 with the global concern attached to climate change, the publication by the United Nations of the World Energy Assessment and the detailed consideration given to this issue at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002. Australia has been seen to be lagging behind the other major industrialised nations of the world in addressing sustainable energy issues. This book was first published in 2006.

The law of energy and natural resources has always had a strong focus on property as one of its components, but there are relatively few comparative, book-length, treatments of both property law and energy and natural resources law. The aim of this edited collection is to explore the multiple dimensions of the contemporary relationship between property and energy and natural resources law. Its genesis was the growing resurgence of global interest in questions of property in energy and resources and how it manifests itself across legal regimes around the world.
With an international and comparative character, the collection seeks to capture differences in the meaning of property, and the different views about the role it should play in a diverse range of contexts: civil law and common law; the law of indigenous communities; public law and private law; and national and international law. Key issues discussed include private rights and common property situations, privatization and regulation, competition for land use and resources, the role of property rights in environmental protection, and the balance between national sovereignty and the security of foreign investment.
The collection thus has relevance for a wide readership interested in the legal dimensions of property as an increasingly important aspect of the law for energy and resources across diverse countries, and at the international level. The contributors are established experts in the energy and natural resources law field, and the collection builds upon a body of previous collaborative work in this area.

While energy has been extracted from the ground for two centuries, recent years have seen transformative changes to how easy it is to access underground energy resources. This book investigates the key challenges and legal consequences of recent developments in the use of the subsurface as a source of energy. It provides a comprehensive analysis of the new technologies that have made this possible, such as the extraction of unconventional oil and gas resources through horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking. Further developments include the expanded use of geothermal energy, which has the potential to beome a major renewable energy source. The subsurface can also be utilised for long-term disposal or storage of environmentally harmful by-products of energy use, such as carbon capture and storage (CCS), and disposal of spent nuclear fuel and other nuclear waste. Successful development of these technologies could enhance the use of fossil and nuclear energy by reducing the harm caused by the release of greenhouse gases and harmful radiation. The authors bring together a wide variety of expertise and knowledge to examine the legal implications of the development and control of these underground activities. They provide an invaluable understanding of the legal frameworks applicable to the extraction of underground energy, both at the international level and in a number of important national jurisdictions. Importantly, the book analyses the different regulatory responses to these developments across five continents, and assesses in detail the environmental impact of new energy extraction technologies.