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Multilateral organisations and the limits to international energy cooperation

Jeffrey D. Wilson, Asia Research Centre, Murdoch University

Surging world energy prices, increasing oil market volatility and a nascent‘energy transition’ are posing major challenges for global energy governance. In response, there has been a proliferation in the number of multilateral bodies addressing energy issues in recent years, and a wide range of organisations now claim a role in facilitating intergovernmental energy cooperation. However, the practical achievements of these organisations have been very poor, with all suffering difficulties that have limited their ability to promote shared energy interests between states. This article examines the dynamics of multilateral energy organisations, arguing that the political economy features of energy – securitisation and attendant patterns of economic nationalism – explains why they have failed to develop more robust cooperative mechanisms. Ten global-level organisations are evaluated, and found to suffer from either membership,design or commitmentissues that limit their effectiveness in global energy governance. These challenges are linked to the securitisation of energy, which has led governments to favour low-cost soft law approaches over potentially more effective hard law institutional designs. Moreover, the securitisation of energy poses limits for how far multilateral energy cooperation can proceed, and means contemporary efforts to strengthen these organisations are unlikely to succeed in coming years. 

A copy of the paper is available at