Lawyering in a lawless land.

• Author: Keeping, Janet
• Position: Feature Report on Canadian Lawyers Abroad - Russia

Until recently I worked at a research institute devoted to the study of natural resources law. In 1993 our institute was asked to join a consortium of Canadian organizations to offer advice to the Russian Ministry of Fuel and Energy. The Soviet Union had collapsed in 1991, and Russian officials were eager to consult with Canadians on how to redesign their oil and gas regulatory system in a manner more consistent with a market-oriented economy and democratic government. We were brought in as academic, legal support to the team of oil and gas bureaucrats from organizations such as the Alberta Department of Energy, Natural Resources Canada and the National Energy Board.

This brief article will address the following five questions:

* What was the objective of our activity in Russia?

* What did we actually do?

* Were we successful?

* How do you lawyer in a lawless land?

* Why continue?

Objectives of our activity

Between 1993 and 2005 there were three distinct phases to our work in Russia. In the first, while part of the consortium noted above, the objective was to expose

Russian government officials to how oil and gas development is handled in Canadian law, policy and regulation. The issues addressed included questions of

* federalism--how is authority over oil and gas regulation divided amongst the various levels of government so as to achieve sensible results?;

* rights issuance--by what system does government put licences to work minerals in the hands of companies?;

* royalties--how does government determine how much companies should pay to the owners of the resource (that is, the public)?;

* environmental protection--how does government protect environmental values in the face of oil and gas development?; and

* Aboriginal rights and interests--how are these to be protected in regions where oil and gas resources are under development?

By the time the second phase was begun in 1997, the Canadian funder of this activity--the Canadian International Development Agency--was looking for clearer "results". Thus the objective became to inform in a more pointed way, in order to have some tangible influence on reform. Some of the issues remained the same, such as licensing, but others were new. For example, we compared the rules used by Canadian organizations, especially securities commissions, with the Soviet rules still in use in Russia to estimate volumes of oil and gas.

By the year 2000, when the third phase of our Russian activity was underway, we...