Abstract
Establishing joint development areas is a solution that can be used by sovereign states to exploit resources in areas with maritime disputes. However, when legislation and regulations governing these joint development areas were established, less attention was given to the challenges of oil and gas decommissioning. As part of wider research to investigate stakeholder impacts on oil and gas decommissioning activities in the United Kingdom and Australia, a significant emergent finding was that there are various regulatory uncertainties regarding the rules, standards and procedures that should be adopted when managing oil and gas decommissioning activities in joint development areas. One reason for these uncertainties is because there is still an ongoing debate regarding the nature and definition of joint development areas as political entities. These uncertainties are unfavourable because oil and gas decommissioning activities can have significant social, political, environmental and even economic impacts. Rather than focusing on the debate regarding the definition of joint development areas as political entities, this paper proposes that governments enhance the prescriptiveness of existing joint development agreements to address these regulatory uncertainties. This approach is favourable, as joint development agreements can also be utilised in order to incentivise the sharing of resources and collaboration amongst stakeholders. Such an arrangement can facilitate the better management of oil and gas decommissioning activities in joint development areas, and hence, minimise the overall decommissioning liabilities of organisations, institutions and governments.