Social Europe

politics, economy and employment & labour

  • Themes
    • European digital sphere
    • Recovery and resilience
  • Publications
    • Books
    • Dossiers
    • Occasional Papers
    • Research Essays
    • Brexit Paper Series
  • Podcast
  • Videos
  • Newsletter

Scotland And Oil: Avoiding A Disastrous Precedent

Paul Collier 13th May 2014 8 Comments

Paul Collier

Paul Collier

In September the Scots will vote on secession. For decades, the key slogan of the Scottish Nationalist Party has been ‘Its Scotland’s oil’. Yet this claim has never been subject to serious scrutiny. I will argue that it is spurious: ethically, legally, and practically.

The philosopher of justice, John Rawls, grounded justice in those social rules agreed behind a ‘veil of ignorance’. Citizens should agree the rules prior to knowing where they would find themselves in society. Valuable natural resources such as oil and gas lend themselves perfectly to such an approach. Prior to discovery, a geological veil of ignorance enables societies to agree on just rules. Overwhelmingly, democratic societies agree that wherever oil is found it should belong equally to all citizens. There are strong reasons for doing so: it avoids a post-code lottery for ownership which would be unfair and risky.

This has certainly been the practice in Europe. Dutch gas belongs to all citizens, not to the region most proximate to the gas. Norwegian oil belongs to all Norwegians, not just to those closest to the oil. The United Kingdom followed the same practice of assigning ownership to the national government. As in the Netherlands and Norway, the process by which ownership rights were assigned was democratic and preceded the discovery. In 1964 Parliament passed the UK Continental Shelf Act which licensed prospecting, as part of which the royalties were assigned to the Treasury.

While the Scottish National Party may not have agreed to this assignment, at the time it lacked support from the Scots. In the 1964 and 1966 general elections prior to the oil discovery the SNP did not win a single seat in parliament. The Scottish people participated and accepted this structure of ownership as fully as did other citizens. By the 1974 election the oil had been discovered and become much more valuable due to hike in world prices. At this point many Scots changed their mind: the SNP made its political breakthrough from obscurity.

However, once people have agreed to common ownership behind the veil of geological ignorance, any retrospective claim of special entitlement is evidently invalid. The SNP’s posturing as a party of the left is contradicted by the greedy opportunism of its core policy. Yet to date, this ugly behaviour has been allowed to masquerade as ethically reasonable. By default, ordinary Scottish people have come to believe that an independent Scotland would own the oil off its coast.

Does the North Sea oil really belong to Scotland? Paul Collier says no (photo: CC nate2b on Flickr)

Does the North Sea oil really belong to Scotland? Paul Collier says no (photo: CC nate2b on Flickr)

Why Scotland’s Oil Policy Could Set A Dangerous Precedent

Existing international law appertaining to the ownership of sub-soil natural resources is concerned only with the assignment of newly discovered resources between states which are already internationally recognized. Had Scotland been independent at the time when oil was discovered, the oil would indeed have belonged to it. However, this has no legal bearing on the assignment of ownership rights to oil within the territory of recognized state. Secession does not override and reassign the established rights to known natural assets.

Scotland is of fundamental importance as an international precedent because it will be the first democratic secession in a resource-rich polity. To date, the only such political separations have arisen through belated decolonization, namely Timor Leste, South Sudan and the breakup of the USSR. In each case the seceding populations had been imprisoned in autocratic polities. International law recognizes that decolonization provides no precedent for other contexts.

The consequences of such a precedent would be disastrous. Many poor countries are discovering valuable natural assets. If the regions that turn out to be well-endowed are allowed to appropriate these resources by seceding, many will try to do so. Even in Scotland, which has been a part of Britain for three centuries, the discovery of oil has stressed the existing polity. The same pressures are apparent in the more recent and fragile polities of poor countries. Most poor countries are relatively recent amalgams of sub-national identities. Resource opportunism could tear them apart.

Indeed, it already has: Biafra in Nigeria and Katanga in the Congo both attempted to secede with their resource wealth: both led to war. In 2012 Tanzania discovered gas off the coast of the Mtwara region. Despite the sustained efforts of President Nyerere to build a sense of national unity, riots in the region claiming ‘its Mtwara’s gas’ have already left four people dead. Not only would a Scottish precedent risk conflict, it would lead to inequality. Fearing secession, polities would concede resource ownership to their regions. A minority of fortunately endowed regions would become islands of affluence in oceans of poverty.

The implications are so serious that the European Union should not leave the issue to negotiation between Britain and Scotland.

Paul Collier

Sir Paul Collier is Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford University. His latest book is 'Exodus: Immigration and Multiculturalism in the 21st Century' published by Penguin and Oxford University Press.

Home ・ Politics ・ Scotland And Oil: Avoiding A Disastrous Precedent

Most Popular Posts

schools,Sweden,Swedish,voucher,choice Sweden’s schools: Milton Friedman’s wet dreamLisa Pelling
world order,Russia,China,Europe,United States,US The coming world orderMarc Saxer
south working,remote work ‘South working’: the future of remote workAntonio Aloisi and Luisa Corazza
Russia,Putin,assets,oligarchs Seizing the assets of Russian oligarchsBranko Milanovic
Russians,support,war,Ukraine Why do Russians support the war against Ukraine?Svetlana Erpyleva

Most Recent Posts

trade,values,Russia,Ukraine,globalisation Peace and trade—a new perspectiveGustav Horn
biodiversity,COP15,China,climate COP15: negotiations must come out of the shadowsSandrine Maljean-Dubois
reproductive rights,abortion,hungary,eastern europe,united states,us,poland The uneven battlefield of reproductive rightsAndrea Pető
LNG,EIB,liquefied natural gas,European Investment Bank Ukraine is no reason to invest in gasXavier Sol
schools,Sweden,Swedish,voucher,choice Sweden’s schools: Milton Friedman’s wet dreamLisa Pelling

Other Social Europe Publications

The transatlantic relationship
Women and the coronavirus crisis
RE No. 12: Why No Economic Democracy in Sweden?
US election 2020
Corporate taxation in a globalised era

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

EU Care Atlas: a new interactive data map showing how care deficits affect the gender earnings gap in the EU

Browse through the EU Care Atlas, a new interactive data map to help uncover what the statistics are often hiding: how care deficits directly feed into the gender earnings gap.

While attention is often focused on the gender pay gap (13%), the EU Care Atlas brings to light the more worrisome and complex picture of women’s economic inequalities. The pay gap is just one of three main elements that explain the overall earnings gap, which is estimated at 36.7%. The EU Care Atlas illustrates the urgent need to look beyond the pay gap and understand the interplay between the overall earnings gap and care imbalances.


BROWSE THROUGH THE MAP

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

Towards a new Minimum Wage Policy in Germany and Europe: WSI minimum wage report 2022

The past year has seen a much higher political profile for the issue of minimum wages, not only in Germany, which has seen fresh initiatives to tackle low pay, but also in those many other countries in Europe that have embarked on substantial and sustained increases in statutory minimum wages. One key benchmark in determining what should count as an adequate minimum wage is the threshold of 60 per cent of the median wage, a ratio that has also played a role in the European Commission's proposals for an EU-level policy on minimum wages. This year's WSI Minimum Wage Report highlights the feasibility of achieving minimum wages that meet this criterion, given the political will. And with an increase to 12 euro per hour planned for autumn 2022, Germany might now find itself promoted from laggard to minimum-wage trailblazer.


FREE DOWNLOAD

ETUI advertisement

Bilan social / Social policy in the EU: state of play 2021 and perspectives

The new edition of the Bilan social 2021, co-produced by the European Social Observatory (OSE) and the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), reveals that while EU social policy-making took a blow in 2020, 2021 was guided by the re-emerging social aspirations of the European Commission and the launch of several important initiatives. Against the background of Covid-19, climate change and the debate on the future of Europe, the French presidency of the Council of the EU and the von der Leyen commission must now be closely scrutinised by EU citizens and social stakeholders.


AVAILABLE HERE

Eurofound advertisement

Living and working in Europe 2021

The Covid-19 pandemic continued to be a defining force in 2021, and Eurofound continued its work of examining and recording the many and diverse impacts across the EU. Living and working in Europe 2021 provides a snapshot of the changes to employment, work and living conditions in Europe. It also summarises the agency’s findings on issues such as gender equality in employment, wealth inequality and labour shortages. These will have a significant bearing on recovery from the pandemic, resilience in the face of the war in Ukraine and a successful transition to a green and digital future.


AVAILABLE HERE

About Social Europe

Our Mission

Article Submission

Membership

Advertisements

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641

Social Europe Archives

Search Social Europe

Themes Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

Follow us on social media

Follow us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Follow us on LinkedIn

Follow us on YouTube