Decree BlogYousuf is an Oman and English-law qualified lawyer with over 10 years of experience working for the government of Oman, in private practice, and in state-owned enterprises in the power, water, and logistics sectors. His areas of subject matter expertise include power projects, water desalination projects, climate change, and corporate governance. He holds an LLB from the University of Hull, an LLM in International Commercial Law from the University of Birmingham, and an MBA from Waseda University in Japan. Yousuf is also a co-founder of Decree.om and Qanoon.om.
The year 2024 was a big year for Decree. In terms of content, Decree remains the biggest and most comprehensive database of English-translated Omani legislation ever created, and this year alone, we added more than 500 new and old legislative items to our catalogue, including essentially every single new royal decree and ministerial decision published in the Official Gazette in 2024.
Back in late 2020, Royal Decree 131/2020 regarding the Water and Wastewater Sector made an unusual reference—it referred to a law that was not yet promulgated, stating that this yet-to-be-issued law would regulate the water and wastewater sector.
Just before the end of business last Thursday, the Sultanate issued its first ever royal decree pertaining to the rapidly-developing field of hydrogen. Royal Decree 10/2023 Allocating Some Lands for the Purposes of Renewable Energy and Clean Hydrogen Projects is the first of its kind, earmarking sizable parcels of land purely for these projects.
The Ministry of Commerce, Industry, and Investment Promotion (MOCIIP) recently issued a regulation to determine the “beneficial owner” of companies operating in Oman. This regulation is applicable to all types of companies except for public joint stock companies, which are instead regulated by the Capital Market Authority. The companies in question have until the end of this month to satisfy the provisions of this regulation. So what does this regulation mean for your business?
Just over a year ago, we launched the beta version of Decree to create a definitive English language resource for Omani royal decrees, laws, ministerial decisions, regulations, and treaties. This month, Decree has turned one, and to celebrate this occasion, I thought it would be appropriate to share a progress report that showcases the considerable amount of content we have made available during the course of 2022, as well as mentioning our ambitions for 2023.
Back in June 2022, I had predicted that Oman would pledge to achieve net zero by 2050. What I had not predicted was how soon this pledge would come. As you have probably heard by now, Oman has, in the lead-up to COP 27, pledged to achieve net zero by 2050.
This is fantastic news—it demonstrates Oman’s commitments to the objectives of the Paris Agreement and will most certainly galvanise its government and the private sector towards achieving this goal. However, it is also a daunting task that requires a fundamental rethink on how we use energy. Oman will have to take many unprecedented steps to fulfil this laudable goal, so how does it go on about it?
Today is World Environment Day—a day dedicated to celebrating and raising awareness about the environment, so I thought I would write a bit about ‘decarbonisation’: what it is, why we need it, and how we can achieve it.
When we first launched Qanoon back in 2015, we launched it with the intention of enabling legal professionals in Oman to do their jobs easily, effectively, and efficiently. Little did we know that it would fundamentally transform the legal sector in Oman by becoming the definitive source for accessing Omani legislation in Arabic and enabling the public to be well-informed and up-to-date on the most recent legal updates. Indeed, Qanoon’s impact has been so far-reaching, even international organisations rely on it for their research and publications.
On 10 March 2020, His Majesty issued a royal order establishing a supreme committee to overlook all matters relating to the pandemic caused by COVID-19 and granting this committee the power to issue decisions as necessary to keep the virus at bay.