The region of Caspian Sea: a point of global geopolitical conflicts, energy competition and local territorial disputes
Master Thesis
Author
Καπιτζίκας, Ιωάννης
Kapitzikas, Ioannis
Date
2022-05-03Advisor
Λιάκουρας, ΠέτροςLiakouras, Petros
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Keywords
Caspian Region ; Kazakhstan ; Azerbaijan ; Russia ; Turkmenistan ; Iran ; UNCLOS ; Energy ; Crude oil ; Natural gas ; Transportation routes ; USA ; EU ; EEZAbstract
The aim of this thesis is to build a strong geopolitical analysis of the Caspian Region, based on the geography of the area and the historical - cultural (religion), political and economic relations of the countries in the area, from the collapse of Soviet Union to our days. This thesis is based on solid and current data, in order to capture the special conditions of the area, such as the territorial disputes between the countries and their competition for energy and economic hegemony in the region, which will be presented later. Another subject that we are going to discuss in this thesis is the Caspian Sea legal regime and how this affects the relations of countries in the area and the prospects for energy cooperation between them. Last but not least, the energy security (problems and potentials) of the region and all the major actors in the region (private sector and states) are mentioned. Concluding, the study proposes some synthetic geographical and legal representations and scenarios of Caspian energy geopolitics.