The Oil and Gas Exploration and Production: Prospects and Challenges of Institutions in Enforcing Compliance with Environmental Laws:

Abstract

The oil and gas industry is known widely for great benefits. Despite all the known benefits, it causes significant adverse effects to the environment. The adverse effects to the environment manifest in the form of environmental violations hence the requirement for compliance with environmental laws through enforcement by the relevant institutions. Uganda just like other oil producing countries is not unique to these environmental violations. Although Uganda is yet to start production, she has already experienced environmental violations thus the need for enforcement of compliance. To ensure compliance of the oil and gas exploration and production activities with environmental law, it requires the effort of all institutions in enforcement. This has however not been the case as some institutions have been involved in the enforcement of compliance and others such as the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Ugandan Police have not been able to criminally enforce compliance due to a number of challenges. The failure to address these challenges faced by the ODPP and Uganda Police in criminal enforcement encourages the noncompliance with environmental laws engendering great threats to the environment. The study found that criminal enforcement is important so as to cause deterrence, incapacitate violators and also rehabilitate the damaged environment in the oil and gas exploration and production industry. The study also found that the ODPP and Uganda Police have a role to play and are relevant for purposes of criminal enforcement. The institutions however face various challenges in the form of inadequate criminal sanctions, lack of trainings, lack of the necessary expertise, lack of knowledge, lack of support from the government, this making it difficult to enforce compliance. The study through a comparison of the Ugandan regime with the UK and USA regimes made recommendations to practically solve these challenges. These included; government support to the institutions in the form of funding, tough criminal sanctions, multiple expert prosecutions, multi- disciplinary approaches to investigations and prosecutions; trainings of the officers and utilization of corporate sanctioning.