Originally from:
Energy Dispute Resolution: Investment Protection, Transit and the Energy Charter Treaty - Hardcover
Energy Dispute Resolution: Investment Protection, Transit and the Energy Charter Treaty - Electronic
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CHAPTER 13
THE ENERGY CHARTER TREATY AND
EAST-WEST TRANSIT
Peter D. Cameron*
If the drafters of the Energy Charter Treaty (‘Treaty’) have been
pleasantly surprised at the growing use and practical impact of
the Treaty’s provisions on investment protection, they will surely
have been disappointed at the contrasting fortunes of the transit
provisions in the Treaty. Even without any knowledge of the
Treaty’s drafting history, it is clear from the final text that much
effort was expended in developing provisions that establish a
legal framework for the peaceful management of transit disputes.1
The collapse of a single state, the Soviet Union, into fifteen
sovereign states, linked by interdependent transportation systems
for energy, was clearly going to give transit an importance it had
not previously enjoyed. Yet, ironically, the existence of these
provisions in the Treaty did not led to their utilisation in the most
serious transit dispute to date, that between Russia and Ukraine in
January 2009. Indeed, in this instance each of the parties de facto
rejected the Treaty provisions on transit, raising the question of
why they might have chosen to do this. Soon afterwards, Russia
Peter D. Cameron is the Director and Professor of
International Energy Law at the Centre for Energy, Petroleum and
Mineral Law and Policy (CEPMLP) at the University of Dundee
(UK). He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators,
member of the London Court of International Arbitration, Board
Member of the Association of International Petroleum
Negotiators, member of the Panel of Experts on Oil and Gas for
the UK tax authorities (HMRC), and member of the International
Bar Association (for 6 years on the governing council of their
energy and natural resources section).
