scholarly journals NATIVE TITLE AND THE PETROLEUM INDUSTRY: RECENT DEVELOPMENTS, OPTIONS, RISKS AND STRATEGIC CHOICES

1996 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 139
Author(s):  
J.C. Altman

The Native Title Act 1993 (NTA) introduces a new dimension to Australia's land tenure systems; new property rights are established for native title parties via the creation of a 'right to negotiate' (RTN) with respect to future acts on land where native title might be determined. There is growing recognition that, legal uncertainties about the potential co-existence of native title on pastoral leases aside, there are elements of the NTA that are resulting in sub-optimal outcomes for the petroleum industry. Within a Coasian analytical framework it is demonstrated that owing to unclear property rights, transactions costs for negotiating exploration and production with native title parties are high. Recognising this, the Commonwealth government has proposed a package of amendments that attempt to address industry concerns while balancing these against indigenous interests. These recommendations include a once-only RTN, a higher threshold for registration of claims, automatic renewal of existing production leases and mandatory statutory functions for Native Title Representative Bodies (NTRBs) that will require them to resolve competing native title claims and to sign-off agreements with resource developers. Noting that strategic behaviour by industry, indigenous parties and especially State governments have hampered effective operations of the NTA, the paper ends by considering the choices available to the petroleum industry to ensure that statutory amendments are in its best interests.

2001 ◽  
Vol 43 (9) ◽  
pp. 235-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Sheehan

The presence of indigenous property rights and interests arising from the survival of native title in Australia presents unique issues in the management of rivers and riverine lands. Existing common law and statutory tidal and non-tidal rights are a complex overlay of public and private property rights which are themselves undergoing significant change through the commodification of many natural resources by Commonwealth and State governments, such as marine species stock and non-tidal water. The melding of indigenous values and management practices with existing management regimes for rivers and riverine lands offers considerable potential for both sustainability of resource utilisation, and respect and recognition of native title with resultant predicted benefits in the vexed area of compensation.


2004 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 741
Author(s):  
D. Young ◽  
G. Scott ◽  
J. Norris

The mosaic of the common law relating to Native Title, which underpins the Native Title and other Acts, continues to be filled in by the courts increasing certainty for all parties. Last year saw the High Court’s Ward decision—the most significant decision for the petroleum industry since Mabo in 1992. Since then there have been three more important decisions, which while not making new law, have shown how the principles enunciated in Ward and Yorta Yorta are being applied. Some of the cases examined include the Daniel and De Rose Hill decisions, which have application to petroleum tenements.This paper will outline the recent developments, and demonstrate how the decisions have reduced uncertainty, thereby narrowing the areas about which negotiation must occur. The hurdle for proving the existence of Native Title remains high.It has not all been in favour of industry, however. Increasingly, Native Title cases, such as Daniels have resulted in unexpected findings that some conventional titles had been invalidly granted. Titles which seemingly ought to have extinguished Native Title have turned out to be invalid, and in many cases irretrievably so. The paper looks at the implications of this for industry as well.


2004 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 753
Author(s):  
E.J. Vickery

Development of Native Title agreements for Petroleum continues in parallel with the release of Court decisions on the law of Native Title. Negotiated agreements for three bidding rounds in the South Australian region of the Cooper Basin are now concluded, with exploration underway there and some new commercial production.These agreements were negotiated under the Commonwealth Native Title Act’s ‘Right to Negotiate’. Agreed resolutions are virtually demanded by the competing tensions within the legislative machinery. The need for conjunctivity of title from the exploration to the development stages is now understood and has become accepted by advocates for Native Title claimants. Recent court decisions would appear to ease the path for applications to the National Native Title Tribunal where negotiations fail to reach agreement, expanding the range of strategies open to Petroleum explorers seeking new title grants.Small negotiating teams facilitated progress. Despite a long first negotiation, subsequent negotiations have developed from that experience to form an efficient and cost-effective model which has now been replicated for more than 35 agreements conjunctive for all phases of activity. All those agreements address the key issues of title grants, both initially and consequently upon discoveries, Aboriginal heritage inspections and accommodation, including practical aides of indicative timelines and budgets for the latter, and compensation. Adaptation of these agreements is beginning in other parts of Australia. The temptation of Native Title advocates to test the envelope, however, must be expected with each new negotiation. Contrastingly, both the industry and state government agencies are seeking stabilisation of the terms of negotiated agreements to see how they will work in practice.This paper describes the key terms and temptations encountered so far in this evolving dynamic.


1994 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 174
Author(s):  
Frank M. Hooke

The judgement of the High Court of Australia in 1992 in Mabo v. Queensland has had a major impact on land law in Australia.The Native Titles Act, 1993, is the first of what will be many steps in a long, complex legislative program to integrate 'native title', into Australia's land law.Those drafting the Native Title Act seemed to have concentrated on dealing with 'native title' issues in isolation and to have ignored or put to one side the need for it to mesh with other aspects of land law. This has created uncertainty for many users of land and will require review.Although the contrary was intended, the Act creates, in practical terms, significant uncertainty for renewal of existing oil and gas exploration and production titles. It also has implications for applicants for new titles and in due course for farmouts and assignments.Eventually additional legislation will be required to clarify the relationship of native title with the other areas of land law.


Legal Theory ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-34
Author(s):  
João Alberto de Oliveira Lima ◽  
Cristine Griffo ◽  
João Paulo A. Almeida ◽  
Giancarlo Guizzardi ◽  
Marcio Iorio Aranha

Abstract At the core of Hohfeld's contribution to legal theory is a conceptual framework for the analysis of the legal positions occupied by agents in intersubjective legal relations. Hohfeld presented a system of eight “fundamental” concepts relying on notions of opposition and correlation. Throughout the years, a number of authors have followed Hohfeld in applying the notion of opposition to analyze legal concepts. Many of these authors have accounted for Hohfeld's theory in direct analogy with the standard deontic hexagon. This paper reviews some of these accounts and extends them employing recent developments from opposition theory. In particular, we are able to extend application of opposition theory to an open conception of the law. We also account for the implications of abandoning the assumption of conflict-freedom and admitting seemingly conflicting legal positions. This enables a fuller analysis of Hohfeld's conceptual analytical framework. We also offer a novel analysis of Hohfeld's power positions.


2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-127
Author(s):  
Widhiana Hestining Puri

THE CONCEPT OF THE LAND REFORM IN CUSTOMARY LAW OF THE JAVANESE COMMUNITY   Widhiana H. Puri Phd Student at Law Fakulty of Gadjah Mada University and Lecture in National Land Academy, Indonesia. Email [email protected] Research Highlights   Land reform is a state effort to overcome the imbalance of land tenure in the community (Wiradi, 2000 # 1). Customary law in the Javanese community recognizes the existence of a mechanism of welfare distribution through the ownership and joint use of land in community togetherness bonds based on territorial factors as well as the concept of land reform. The existence of customary land as pekulen land is land owned by the village whose use rights can be requested by the villagers with a rotating utilization mechanism among the villagers in need (Luthfi, 2010 # 2). The study found that indigenous peoples in Java had a welfare distribution mechanism that was the essence of land reform or agrarian reform through a mechanism of land communalization and distribution of its use carried out on a shared land / communal land of the village in rotation.     Research Objectives This research was conducted in order to understand the phenomena of the implementation of law that developed in the community. The existence of community law or so-called non state law, informal law, or customary law in Indonesia is very numerous. The reality of this law is that the majority is still far from the attention and order of a positive and formal state legal arrangement. The community regulation model is an effort to meet the needs of its legal ideals in the midst of limited state positive law arrangements that tend to be more static and less responsive (Puri, 2017 # 16). The community regulation mechanism is a manifestation of unity in the village community where the distribution of land use is carried out among community members who have a concept in line with the national agrarian policy of the country called land reform. The regulatory model initiated from the local level becomes the learning material for how the land regulation mechanism is not always top down, but can be bottom up based on customary law that is proven effective and in accordance with the characteristics of the local community.     Methodology This research was carried out through an empirical legal research model with research locations in villages in Pituruh Subdistrict, Purworejo Regency, Central Java Province. This research is a kind of analytical descriptive research that is directed to get an idea of ​​how the implementation of Javanese traditions in land management has a concept similar to land reform or agrarian reform. In order to analyze existing traditions, a socio-legal approach is carried out, namely a study of the law using the approach of law and social sciences in order to analyze it (Irianto, 2012 # 17). The legal approach referred to is not only to see aspects of norms that are built on the provisions of customary law alone but by looking at their relevance to the regulation of the positive law of the country as the territory of the enactment of the community regulation. This is to see the common thread and the interrelationship between the two and avoid the release of the phenomenon of legal pluralism that is within the scope of national law. So that the legal norms of the community can be assessed as the model of regulation that can be applied in other regions.     Results Javanese people in Indonesia have a land regulation mechanism that has a concept similar to that of land reform or agrarian reform by the state. The customary law of the Javanese community has a common bond based on territorial factors or similarity in the area of ​​residence (Taneko, 2002 # 11). Customary law communities with their customary rights can own and control land both in the concept of individual property rights and communal / communal property rights. The concept of shared property / communal rights illustrates the existence of ownership rights by all members of the community embodied in village control (Susanto, 1983 # 18). One form of joint ownership is the right of possession which can be controlled by community members with the permission of the village government to be used for the benefit of themselves and their families with a rotating mechanism. At present, land is experiencing strengthening and individualization, but the character of togetherness and social function of land is maintained through the distribution of utilization rights of speculative land which has the status of individual property rights, in village settings.     Findings Land reform or agrarian reform is a land policy that aims to overcome the imbalance of land tenure through the distribution of land to people in need. Land reform or agrarian reform can be extended not only to the concept of distribution of land ownership but also to the control and use of land. The limitations of the number of land parcels and the need for land can be overcome through a model of tenure and shared use of land based on the concept of joint property / communal rights over land.    


2011 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 369 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wally Braul

The Northeast British Columbia (NEBC) oil patch is undergoing a boom in land tenure sales, exploration, and production. This comes at a time of increasing public concern over the use of hydraulic fracturing (or “fracking”), an unconventional technology that ushered in a new era of production in NEBC, along with several new contentious issues. Recently, four significant regulatory changes have been enacted or planned for the immediate future. The first, likely in response to public concern over fracking, occurred in October 2010 with an overhaul of the decades-old Petroleum and Natural Gas Act and the coming into force of the bulk of the provisions in the Oil and Gas Activities Act. The changes primarily affect production and environmental management, and several new provisions have a direct impact on fracking. The second change under development is the creation of a long-awaited groundwater licencing regime, marking a stronger environmental presence in the NEBC, and possibly abrogating pre-existing extraction rights. The third change arises from the expiry of Crown-First Nation Consultation Process Agreements (CPAs). Recent jurisprudence continues to point to the need for improved consultation and accommodation, but current negotiations may or may not succeed in arriving at a more comprehensive successor to the expired CPAs. Finally, under British Columbia’s contaminated sites regime, new measures expand the liability exposure of oil patch operators for contaminated sites in both civil actions and government enforcement proceedings.


2015 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 71-94
Author(s):  
Greg Castillo

Aboriginal Australian contemporary artists create works that express indigenous traditions as well as the unprecedented conditions of global modernity. This is especially true for the founders of the Spinifex Arts Project, a collective established in 1997 to create so-called “government paintings”: the large-scale canvases produced as documents of land tenure used in negotiations with the government of Western Australia to reclaim expropriated desert homelands. British and Australian nuclear testing in the 1950s displaced the Anangu juta pila nguru, now known to us as the Spinifex people, from their nomadic lifeworld. Exodus and the subsequent struggle to regain lost homelands through paintings created as corroborating evidence for native title claims make Spinifex canvases not simply expressions of Tjukurpa, or “Dreamings,” but also artifacts of the atomic age and its impact on a culture seemingly far from the front lines of cold war conflict.


1980 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rowland J. Harrison

This paper reviews recent developments with respect to constitutional jurisdiction over natural resources. Particular reference is made to discussions between the federal and pro vincial governments directed towards reallocation of authority. It also examines poten tial implications of the constitutional reform movement for the future regulation of the petroleum industry.


1993 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 688-699 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin K. Luckert

As new values of forests emerge, property rights must evolve to accommodate these changes. An analytical framework is presented that may be used to assess whether private negotiations between firms may optimally accommodate newly emerging values. A study of mixed-wood management in Canada reveals that private negotiations form a central role in many mixed-wood policies with varying degrees of success. The analytical framework is used to illustrate that successes in mixed-wood policies may be attributed to tenure structures that facilitate trades in property rights, whereas problems may be explained by constrained or absent markets for property rights. Although private market negotiations may accommodate emerging values in the case of mixed-wood management, physical characteristics and social values associated with nontimber resources may prevent such solutions and may therefore require government regulation.


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