Nigeria, Feb. 19 -- If you grew up anywhere near an oil-producing community in Nigeria, gas flaring is not an abstraction. It is constant light without electricity, heat without benefit, and pollution without consequence.

What makes this more troubling is that, unlike a number of issues stemming from a lack of regulation, this is not happening in a legal vacuum. The country has spent decades legislating against it. Yet, Nigeria remains one of the countries with the highest rate of gas flaring worldwide (ranking in the top 10, according to the World Bank).

The problem is not whether Nigeria has laws on gas flaring. It is whether those laws are designed, enforced, and incentivised in a way that actually stops it.

The legal foundation of ...