In 1994, Dr Brian Twomey and Olav Fjellsa engaged with the UN’s Subcommittee on Extractive Industries Taxation Issues for Developing Countries. The engagement contributed to developing decommissioning laws and regulations in South East Asia, with books published under the UN’s Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific.
From this engagement, Dr Brian Twomey was invited in 2014 to present the findings and address issues related to the United Nations Model Double Taxation Convention between developed and developing countries. From this presentation, Dr Twomey and Olav Fjellsa contributed to a paper on this topic for the UN, where the scope of work covered:
- Broad principles behind a government’s regime for decommissioning and considers the actual work needed to achieve local, national, and international requirements.
- Methods by which the assignment of responsibilities to carry out such work, and the different legal frameworks which govern the relationship between the host state/resource owner and contractor involved with the extractive activity.
- Examining the different models for funding decommissioning work and the methods by which the costs can be estimated.
The paper was subsequently published in 2016 by three other authors.
Summary of Dr Brian Twomey and Olav Fjellsa’s involvement:
- 2014: Dr Brian Twomey (RESL, Technical) and Olav Fjellsa (Petrad, Economic) presented and led the second day of the UN workshop on 6 August 2014 in Arusha, Tanzania.
- 2014: Dr Brian Twomey (RESL, Technical) and Olav Fjellsa (Petrad, Economic) presented and led the second day of the UN workshop in November 2014 at the UN Headquarters in Geneva.
- 2014-2015: Dr Brian Twomey (RESL, Technical) and Olav Fjellsa (Petrad, Economic) wrote the first drafts of the “Taxation Guidelines for Worldwide Decommissioning”, with the first draft issued in August 2014. This was later included in a UN Handbook.
- 2018: “United Nations Handbook on Selected Issues for Taxation of the Extractive Industries by Developing Countries” was published, which contains the contributions from Dr Brian Twomey (RESL, Technical) and Olav Fjellsa (Petrad, Economic).