IMSC 2013 1 International regime or regional solution? An overview of the current state of affairs of pollution liabilities resulting from offshore oil exploration and exploitation activities in seabed areas of national jurisdiction María Carolina Romero Lares Assistant Professor, World Maritime University Citadellsvägen 29, S 211 18 Malmö, Sweden mcr@wmu.se ABSTRACT Oil drilling activities in deep water areas have increased over the years. Reasons for this boost could be: the discovery of oil reserves in the continental shelves of several countries, a higher demand for petroleum, or the development of far reaching drilling capabilities. Major oil spills, such as the blowout of the Deepwater Horizon rig in 2010 in the USA highlighted the problems faced by today's oil industry when dealing with this type of issues. It is estimated that a third of the oil consumed today comes from offshore oil exploration, and this dependency continues to grow. The development of new technology will likely move these operations away from areas closer to the coast, increasing the risks of transboundary pollution. Unlike international conventions that regulate pollution caused by maritime carriage of oil by tankers, there aren't any international legal instruments to regulate the pollution caused by offshore oil exploitation. The subject is usually left to national legislation. A proposal to adopt international standards was defeated at the International Maritime Organization this year. The main idea of this paper is to analyze different initiatives that could lead to reaching minimum international standards to regulate the activities of the offshore oil industries, at the international, regional or national level. KEY WORDS Pollution liabilities – offshore exploration and exploitation – oil spills – transboundary pollution 1. INTRODUCTION The activities for offshore oil extraction have increased dramatically in recent years. The reasons for this are varied: rising oil prices, growing demand worldwide for products of the oil industry, the discovery of large hydrocarbon deposits on the continental shelves, and several other advances in technology, which have enabled the industry to access remote areas off the coast. Today, it is estimated that a third of the oil consumed worldwide comes from offshore platform operations and this trend will continue to rise. It is also anticipated that the development of new technologies will bring about exploration and exploitation operations of hydrocarbons further away from the coast and into deeper waters,