earticle

영어

After the time when oil and gas replaced the position of coal as 'the king' of fundamental energy sources required for the industrial society since World War Ⅱ, human- being has been called as 'hydro-carbon man'. Because of environmental problem and its scarcity in amount, however in recent years, many nations, representatively America and Korea, have been trying to make change the fundamental sources from fossil fuel society to hydrogen society with the strong investment in green energy such as solar, or alternative energy. In spite of this effort, it is the important fact that the dependance on oil and gas will be constant in at least 20 years. There are variety kinds of risks in oil and gas development such as political, legal, financial problems, and culture-social differences in world wide operation. So, It is natural consequence that development of oil and gas is the most difficult and risky project. In order to help to make risks minimize in legal aspect, this article focused on one issue; the ownership of oil and gas as the representative of all kinds of minerals. The study on sovereignty over natural resources, the practical implication of mineral ownership issue, and comparative research on the mineral(or oil and gas) Acts of representative States are the main topics discussed in the article. The early concession system gave the privileges with long term over 60 years, wide area covering almost the whole country, ownership of oil and gas in nature, and exclusive right to explore, develop to the international developers, including 'seven sisters'. This system caused serious side effects on host countries met its final with the General Assembly resolution 1803 (XVII) of 14 December 1962, "Permanent sovereignty over natural resources" and nationalization trend in South America and Middle East. Even though sovereignty over the oil and gas became an international rule, some countries such as America has kept the principle of personal ownership of land owner. This is totally different from the mineral law system of England and Australia having the same legal system of common law. Since the decision of the Court of Exchequer in 1567 and the Acts relating to minerals, oil and gas in these two countries belong to His or Her Majesty, the King. The problem in relation to the ownership of oil and gas in Korea is that there is no explicit provisions in mineral Acts, even in the Constitution on the ownership issue. It will be better for the provisional developer to give clear legal rules on who is the owner of oil and gas, and the definitions on what is oil and gas, or petroleum. On top of that, it is required to be upgraded the policy on oil and gas development in order to make the process and the conditions for getting the permission for the development clear and transparent. These works will contribute to achieving the national goal for securing energy security.