Legal Issues of the Structure and Activities of International Energy Associations in the Modern World

The world energy industry today faces new challenges. They include regulating energy markets, protecting the environment and sustainable development. An appropriate response to these challenges could be to employ the potential of multilateral interaction within the framework of international energy associations with a view to establishing effective mechanisms for the provision of international energy security. The importance of an intra-organizational (institutional) mechanism is due to the fact that it ensures the cooperation of States within the framework of international energy associations. Accumulated during more than half a century of the existence of international energy associations, the normative framework requires processing, scientific systematization, as well as theoretical generalizations and proposals of obvious practical importance. This paper, for the first time in the Russian science of international law, makes a comprehensive scientific and legal analysis of issues of membership, institutional structure, working order and interrelations among different bodies, personnel formation, privileges and immunities of international energy associations. The scientific and legal analysis is aimed at exploring the constituent acts, headquarters agreements, agreements on privileges and immunities of international organizations, international treaties, as well as modern doctrine of international law.
The conclusions and proposals made in the paper can be used by States to improve the institutional (intraorganizational) mechanism of effective international energy associations, as well as for planning new associations. They can also be used by the Russian Federation in developing strategies to interact with such associations. The paper uses general and private scientific methods of research: formal-legal, historical-legal, system analysis, comparative-legal approaches.

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