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Abstract
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, local environmental activism in Central Asia was widespread. While environmental activists had managed to create mutually beneficial alliances with the titular elite during the Soviet period, these alliances disintegrated as the Soviet successor states became increasingly integrated into the international system. In their place, new transnational alliances emerged between local environmental activists and international non-governmental organisations. Yet, the ensuing transnational alliances did not merely entail international activists exerting pressure from outside on their domestic governments. Rather, local environmental activists have also carved out a separate realm for independent political action, facilitated by the coupling of national law with international conventions. Then, over time, environmental activism has moved from dependent activism to interdependent activism. In order to explicate the ways in which the coupling of national law with international conventions influences environmental activism and outcomes, evidence is provided from petroleum development at the Karachaganak and Kashagan oil fields in Kazakhstan and environmental activism in Turkmenistan. In particular, the authors examine how the 1998 Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (i.e. Aarhus Convention) has transformed environmental activism and domestic law in Central Asia.
Notes
2. IFC funding of major petroleum exploitation projects became increasingly common toward the end of the 20th century. IFC also provided loans for the Chad–Cameroon project. For details regarding its failure, see Gould and Winters (Citation2007).
3. A class action suit was only filed in 1993 against Texaco in a US court on behalf of the thousands of Ecuadorian citizens affected by the oil operations (see Watts Citation2001).
4. On different modes of political action, see Dalton et al. (Citation2003).
5. By 2009, according to Freedom House classifications only Kyrgyzstan remained ‘partly free’ and Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan were all considered ‘not free’ (see http://www.freedomhouse.org).
6. Because of that, we only cite activists that have been very public in their actions and rhetoric. Moreover, our focus is on the strategies of domestic and international activists and not on the changes taking place within the foreign investor community pertaining to corporate social responsibility (for details on the latter, see Jones Luong and Weinthal Citation2010).
7. Barbara Jancar-Webster (Citation1998), in similar manner, observed that in East Central Europe that the environmental movement had matured such that it was no longer merely engaged in popular protest but had become more ‘goal-oriented’ and professional in its mobilisation tactics.
8. On corruption in the cotton sector in Central Asia, see Gleason (Citation1990).
9. For a discussion of attention paid to increasing rates of infant mortality, see Bohr (Citation1988).
10. Resolution on the Cessation of Work on the Diversion of the Flow of the Northern and Siberian Rivers. CC CPSU and USSR Council of Ministers. Pravda, 20 August 1986, p. 1.
11. Shermukhamedov helped create the Committee for Saving the Aral Sea.
12. For an overview of the internationalisation of environmental politics, see Schreurs and Economy (Citation1997).
14. Turkmenistan's new President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov reversed this ban in 2007 following the death of President Saparmurat Niyazov (see http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav030807.shtml).
15. For information on this campaign, see http://www.crudeaccountability.org/en/index.php?page=zatoka-freed. Since this article was authored, Zakota was once again arrested on 20 October 2009.
16. Of the Central Asian states, only Uzbekistan has not signed or ratified the Aarhus Convention (Zaharchenko and Goldenman Citation2004).
19. Other ways that the government has sought to circumvent NGO activity is through a cumbersome registration process and requisite high registration fees.
21. The well-known corruption case of the 1990s involving Chevron and President Nursultan Nazarbaev has been followed by a corruption scandal at the Karachaganak Oil and Gas Condensate Field involving Baker Hughes, a US oil services company that was found guilty of corruption in 2007 by the US Department of Justice and paid over $40 million in fines. For more information about this case, see: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/27/business/worldbusiness/27settle.html or http://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/2007/lr20094.htm
24. Publish what you pay is a consortium of over 300 NGOs. For more information on these campaigns, see http://www.publishwhatyoupay.org/english/; http://www.eitransparency.org/; http://www.revenuewatch.org/
25. Under a PSA, a host government contracts a foreign oil and gas company to undertake exploration and production. Because the foreign oil and gas company agrees to carry the initial risk, the contract specifies that the foreign investor will be able to recoup its initial costs first and then will receive a share of the oil produce as payment (Bindemann Citation1999).
26. For details, see http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/kazaproj.html
27. This letter is available from the Berezovka Initiative Group.
28. Some of these documents can be found at http://www.crudeaccountability.org
29. The complaints are available on the website of the CAO at: http://www.cao-ombudsman.org/index.htm
30. For information and press about the Berezovka case, see http://www.crudeaccountability.org/en/index.php?page=karachaganak-press and http://www.greensalvation.org/index.php?page=berezovka
31. http://www.crudeaccountability.org/en/index.php?page=press-release-on-access-to-information-victory
32. On the variation in forms of authoritarianism, see Schatz (Citation2006). He refers to Kazakhstan has having a ‘soft’ form of authoritarianism.
33. Exploration initially began in 1993 with the establishment of the Kazakhstancaspishelf Consortium that included Agip, BP, Statoil, BG, Mobil, Total and Shell. In 1997 they dissolved the original consortium after they finished exploration work and instead formed OKIOC ( http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/kazaproj.html). In August 2001, OKOIC officially became AgipKCO since Agip was the sole operator.
34. http://www.banktrack.org/show/dodgydeals/kashagan_oil_project [Accessed 15 April 2009].
35. Initially slated to go online in 2007, predictions for Kashagan oil are now 2013. http://silkroadintelligencer.com/2009/03/11/kashagan-unaffected-by-global- economic-crisis-shell-executive/ [Accessed 13 April 2009].
36. According to the accounts of a local NGO, after the announcement of EITI by UK Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2002 at the World Summit for Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, NGOs such as the Open Society Institute and IFIs such as the World Bank and EBRD began a concerted effort to pressure the governing elites to sign onto EITI (Oil Revenues – Under Public Oversight! 2007).
37. See, for example, Kashagan Oil Field Development, published by Friends of the Earth Europe, CEE Bankwatch Network, Center Globus, Friends of the Earth France and the Campaign for the Reform of the World Bank, in December 2007 and Hellfire Economics: Multinational Companies and the Contract Dispute over Kashagan, the World's Largest Undeveloped Oilfield by Greg Muttitt of Platform, published in December 2007 by Platform, Friends of the Earth Europe, CEE Bankwatch, Crude Accountability, Center Globus, Friends of the Earth France and the Campaign for the Reform of the World Bank.
38. For example see http://www.crudeaccountability.org/en/index.php?page=correspondence-with-the-ebrd
40. This charge has been leveled against Crude Accountability (Green Salvation Herald 2006, p. 71). The Open Society Foundation also had its office closed in Uzbekistan in 2004 ‘on the grounds that its activities undermine state policies’. See Transitions Online, 27 April 2004.
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