This assessment aims to demonstrate that one of the most important provisions of the Energy Charter Treaty is that on investment promotion and protection as well as creation of a stable regulatory framework. These provisions are designed to bring potentially interested public and private investors to countries which have ratified the Treaty.
This occasional paper is also a tool to raise political awareness within countries targeted by the Charter's expansion and outreach policy. It links such topics as global energy governance, attractiveness of the Charter and the ratification of the Treaty with potential benefits resulting from accession to the ECT. The special context of current trends in global and regional energy sectors is also discussed.
The real impact of the Treaty in terms of financing energy projects on a global scale is not easy to assess due to the lack of statistical data. Therefore, this paper looks at the core values of the Charter to examine how investment promotion and protection under the ECT may become more visible and more useful for raising the profile of the Charter. The paper concludes with the author's suggestions and recommendations for the Energy Charter Secretariat's approach to the Charter's expansion and outreach policy, based on the links between multilateral agreements and FDI.