The Global Norm on Combatting Flaring and Russian Decrees 7 and 1148

Abstract

AbstractThe international norm on combatting the flaring of Associated Petroleum Gas (APG) emerged in the 1970s and, supported by the Global Gas Flaring Reduction Partnership (GGFR), a dedicated programme created in 2002 by the World Bank, rapidly gained momentum on the international stage. The Russian national adoption of this norm took the form of decrees 7 and 1148 passed in 2009 and 2012. After examining how the norm came to be adopted by the Russian authorities under the influence of Transnational Advocacy Networks (TANs), we provide new insights on why compliance is hard to attain, pointing out on one side the hindering part played by badly calibrated Local Content (LC) policies and on the other side the role Transnational Expertise and Experience Networks (TEENs) could have in helping with norm implementation. The Russian decrees on flaring did not lead to the required 95% APG utilization rate across Russia. However, the specific regional case of the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug, which got independently involved in the GGFR project to reduce flaring in the early 2000s and reached the mark of a 95% utilization rate, shows how TEENs can change normative outcomes.KeywordsAssociated Petroleum GasFlaringLocal Content PolicyTransnational Expertise and Experience NetworkLocalizationSustainable development