How the TAPI could change South Asian regionalism

In South Asia, the demand for oil and gas outstrips domestic production, and countries have to rely on energy imports. The high prices of energy on the world market mean that countries incur substantial import bills, compromising their ability to meet their other domestic needs, which in turn affects the region's economic growth. Access to electricity is also a challenge, with it still not available to approximately half of the region's population of 1.5 billion.

Also, the connections between the energy systems of different countries tend to be few to nonexistent, with marginal crossbordertrade in electricity. Natural gas is not traded in the region.

The TAPI: One pipeline to bind them all on regional security

A key challenge to the TAPI's success is securing Afghanistan. South Asia's regional peacemaking record, hamstrung as it is by the rhetoric of non-intervention, is among the worst in the world. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has resolved to leave Afghanistan by 2014, creating a security vacuum that could destabilise the country. India did significantly expand its involvement with a 2011 agreement that paved the way for the training of Afghan military officers in India.

That said, the TAPI would bind India and Pakistan to a common problem. Their current zero sum approach would inevitably increase the threats to the pipeline's security. Thus, instead of trying to win Afghanistan by proxy, they would have to work together to stabilise it.

A multilateral legal framework

A detailed multilateral legal framework regulating gas transit, rent sharing, security and, most importantly, dispute redressal, has been recognised as crucial to the success of a project such as the TAPI. South Asia has failed to develop such a framework in any sphere. The TAPI would therefore provide much needed experience in regional multilateralism. Optimistically, the experience of energy interdependence backed by a legal framework could even have an impact on the way bilateral disputes affecting regional security are discussed in the SAARC.

Collective bargaining

Shared commercial considerations should be front and centre in TAPI negotiations. When Russian producer Gazprom expressed interest in supplying South Asia through the TAPI, Turkmenistan reacted with a warning to act with "a sense of responsibility and reality". Turkmenistan, which has plans to triple the volume of its gas exports within 20 years, is understandably anxious to be the sole source of supply.

However, from the perspective of South Asia, additional sources of supply coming through the TAPI pipeline would enhance the region's energy security. Should Gazprom offer a competitive price, the consuming nations of South Asia must convince Turkmenistan not to turn the Russian company away.

The same goes for adding more consuming nations to the pipeline. The proposed inclusion of Bangladesh, for example, cannot be considered as a victory if it does not make the project more attractive commercially. The overall increase in quantity demanded must be negotiated into better prices for all consuming nations. Willingness to bargain collectively would represent a step in the right direction for regional identity. A less coordinated approach would result in the region resembling pearls on a string--pretty, but easily broken.

There is then some logic in the arguments that the TAPI could lead to higher levels of cooperation and the strengthening of regional arrangements. However, a pipeline also brings with it potentially significant human security costs, which must also be addressed at the regional level.

Environmental risks

On an eco level, pipelines pose significant risks of environmental damage. Displacement of communities and individuals and devastation of traditional livelihoods can result from pollution and environmental accidents. As such, the lack of transparency in the dissemination of the findings of environmental impact assessments (EIAs) is of major concern.

In Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, concerned stakeholders are said to have been unable to gain access to EIAs conducted by the oil companies involved, or to details of the environmental standards agreed upon in the production sharing contracts signed by those oil companies. Exacerbating such issues is the problem of local judiciaries often being less than capable of addressing legal action brought by harmed parties.

Governance and accountability

In dealing with the non-traditional security threats brought about by the development of energy projects, accountability is a key issue. Locating responsibility is rendered problematic because of the tendency of energy projects in the developing world to be run by joint ventures or consortiums.

Given the governance and accountability issues that tend to be associated with these projects, it might be helpful, at least to begin with, that an outside entity take the lead in ensuring that the TAPI project has provisions for mitigating impacts on the security of affected communities. A useful model would be one adopted by the World Bank when it involved itself with the Chad-Cameroon pipeline project.

It was the first instance of private investors agreeing to adhere to a set of standards--the Bank's policies concerning compensation, resettlement, indigenous peoples and the environment. While controversies over that project still remain, it would nevertheless be a significant step forward if the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the major financial force behind the TAPI pipeline, were to provide strong signals by defining the standards expected of the project in relation to addressing non-traditional security concerns.

Thus far, multilateral discussion of non-traditional security issues in the region has been weak. However, if these issues are not dealt with, the security of the pipeline itself could be put at risk. Nigeria's experience stands out as a cautionary tale.

Pipelines in the country have been the subject of persistent attempts to illegally tap the oil, causing pipeline explosions and accidents. These have been traced in part to a cycle of displacement or property loss, poverty and criminalisation of poverty. The possibility of such a cycle occurring along the TAPI could perhaps be the impetus for non-traditional security issues to be moved up the agenda.

Conclusion

An oft-expressed sentiment is that the pipeline by the very fact of its existence will lead to greater harmony in South Asia. This "peace pipeline" rhetoric is dangerous because it suggests that interdependence is itself the route to stability. It is not. The TAPI's success depends greatly on the region significantly changing its approach to itself, committing itself to cooperation, and to multilateral, regional level approaches that focus on common interests.

It must also, concomitantly, develop the beginnings of a regional consensus on non-traditional security issues. If it cannot do these that same interdependence could significantly exacerbate the subcontinent's problems. If the TAPI does force a shift in South Asian regionalism, that could yet be its greatest contribution. 

This is an extract from the original article, reposted with permission from the Centre for Non-Traditional Security (NTS) Studies, S Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS). Tarun Gopalakrishnan served an internship at the Centre, where he explored issues related to environmental and energy security.

BY: Tarun Gopalakrishnan, RSIS