The Modernization of the Energy Charter Treaty: Fulfilled or Broken Promises?

On 24 June 2022, the Contracting Parties of the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) finalized discussions on the modernization of the treaty. After fifteen rounds of negotiations, an agreement in principle was reached to be adopted by the Energy Charter Conference on 22 November 2022 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.1 The ECT, adopted in 1994, establishes a legal framework that aims to promote international cooperation in the energy sector.2 It has a membership of 53 countries primarily from Europe and Central Asia, as well as the European Union (EU) and the European Atomic Energy Community. In recent years, the ECT attracted widespread public attention due to its impact on states’ environmental and climate policies. Particularly, the treaty’s provisions on investment protection, with investor-to-state dispute settlement (ISDS) at the centre, allow foreign investors in the energy sector to challenge adverse state action before international arbitration and claim compensation for measures affecting their business activities. Fossil fuel investors have increasingly used the ECT to challenge environmental and climate measures, such as phasing out coal-fired power generation, banning offshore oil drilling in coastal areas, and prohibiting gas fracking projects. Such cases have fuelled concerns regarding the abilities of governments to roll-out large-scale climate action. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has warned that international investment agreements (IIAs) like the ECT could ‘be used by fossil-fuel companies to block national legislation aimed at phasing out the use of their assets’.3 With some of these damage claims running into billions of euros, the ECT enables fossil fuel investors to offload the costs and risks associated with their affected assets onto society at large in the face of necessary climate action. This would go, in the words of the editorial board of the Financial Times, against the ‘heart of the capitalist social contract’ and the ‘ability of markets to deal adequately with the challenge of climate change’.4