Oil, Gas and Energy Law, vol 5, no. 4 (October 2007).

Abstract: Sustainable development has acquired a legitimate place in discussions of energy development. The concept of cooperative energy security brings together a joint concern with the international environment and energy, with a focus on sustainable development. It is a progressive development of research into the sources of effective international environmental protection. What has made it possible for the energy industry to succeed today in historically the most difficult of circumstances (the Caspian Sea basin) is the qualitatively new phenomenon of strategic alliances amongst industry leaders that has emerged from the need to reply to the incredibly complex engineering tasks combining economic, political and social elements in a manner impossible to disentangle. Yet this notion of “strategic alliance” also describes, in the political realm, the traditional relationship conceived in democratic theory between a civil society and its government. Therefore, no “public-private partnership” but rather a three-way strategic alliance—amongst governments, industry and publics—is necessary today. The present article reviews recent steps in that direction.