Sustainable development of national energy resources: what has international law got to do with it?

Abstract

It is particularly apt to be addressing the sustainable development of energy resources before this august audience. As Professor Omorogbe states in her welcome address, the ILA Nigerian Branch Committee, under the auspices of which this Third Annual Conference is organized, replicates the international committee at national level. Indeed, the topic of “Legal Aspects of Sustainable Development” has been the subject of ILA study since the International Committee on the Legal Aspects of the New International Economic Order reconstituted itself as the International Committee on Legal Aspects of Sustainable Development at the 1992 Cairo ILA Conference.1 This date is significant for, of course, 1992 was the year of the UN Conference on Environment and Development from which the law and policy of sustainable development has grown.2 Amongst other things, this Committee