Introduction

Oil spills are complicated. Recent spills illustrate how difficult it is to properly compensate harm and damages inflicted to life, health, property and the environment. Several of the latest oil spills have caused harm and damages to parties in other jurisdictions than the jurisdiction, in which the source of the spill was located.

This article examines briefly what the international community has done, unsuccessfully, to solve this problem, how countries bilaterally have addressed the issue, and, lastly, what the consequence could be if an international oil spill dispute would transpire between Norway and Russia.