Management of gas transit disputes in the Euro-Asian region

Abstract

The recent political crisis between Russia and Ukraine that seemed to threaten use of the most important gas transit pipeline reminded us how important gas is in European politics. Before reaching the final industrial and household customers, there is a long way for gas to be pumped - from massive extraction stations in the East, it flows through thousands of kilometres of pipelines, to be stored in sophisticated gas storage facilities in the territories of any of the transit countries. As many gas fields lie beyond the borders of continental Europe, many different jurisdictions are often involved in this chain and the longer the chain is the more probable it is that a dispute will arise. In this paper, transit disputes under the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) are going to be considered. Therefore, other issues regulated by the ECT or commercial arbitrations considering transit of gas will not be covered even though they may sometimes play a big role.