This book is dedicated to the memory of Professor Thomas W?lde who died on 11 October 2008 after an accident at his summer home in the south of France. Upon hearing the tidings of his death, hundreds of colleagues and friends worldwide expressed shock and sadness at this premature passing. His reputation was global, because of the quality and nature of his work and the large number of students and younger colleagues whom he mentored throughout the years. In the introduction to Part 6 of my book Themes and Theories, I wrote that in the 1960s and 1970s ‘national developments in petroleum law were being played out against the background of an international law regime for the continental shelf that was also rapidly evolving’.† Thomas and I shared the same fascination for energy law from its inception: it was developed under intense pressure and by a group of dynamic and talented people. I valued my academic links as an external examiner at the University of Dundee’s Centre for Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law and Policy (CEPMLP). Apart from anything else, this afforded an opportunity for animated discussions with Thomas. Thomas also enthusiastically followed the tradition established by his predecessors as director at Dundee, by generously inviting my students at the LLM course on the International Law of Natural Resources (at the London School of Economics) to the annual London conference of the Dundee Centre.