Editing OPEC (section)

=== International cartel ===
At various times, OPEC members have displayed apparent anti-competitive [[cartel]] behavior through the organisation's agreements about oil production and price levels.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Gülen |first=S. Gürcan |year=1996 |title=Is OPEC a Cartel? Evidence from Cointegration and Causality Tests |url=http://fmwww.bc.edu/EC-P/WP318.pdf |url-status=unfit |journal=[[The Energy Journal]]|volume=17 |issue=2 |pages=43–57 |citeseerx=10.1.1.133.9886 |doi=10.5547/issn0195-6574-ej-vol17-no2-3 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20000916172154/http://fmwww.bc.edu/EC-P/WP318.pdf |archive-date=16 September 2000}}</ref> Economists often cite OPEC as a textbook example of a cartel that cooperates to reduce market competition, as in this definition from [[OECD]]'s ''Glossary of Industrial Organisation Economics and Competition Law'':<ref name=cartel>{{cite web |url= http://www.oecd.org/regreform/sectors/2376087.pdf |title= Glossary of Industrial Organization Economics and Competition Law |publisher=[[OECD]] |year=1993 |page=19 |access-date=22 December 2015 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20160304094916/http://www.oecd.org/regreform/sectors/2376087.pdf |archive-date= 4 March 2016 |url-status=live}}</ref>

{{blockquote|International commodity agreements covering products such as coffee, sugar, tin and more recently oil (OPEC: Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries) are examples of ''international cartels'' which have publicly entailed agreements between different national governments.}}While OPEC is at times cited as a textbook example of a cartel, various authoritative and academic sources provide a broader perspective on the organization's role. For instance, the [[US Energy Information Administration]]'s<ref>{{Cite web |title=U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) |url=https://www.eia.gov/ |access-date=8 April 2024}}</ref> glossary explains OPEC as:<ref name=":3" />
{{Blockquote|text=An intergovernmental organization whose stated objective is to 'coordinate and unify the petroleum policies of member countries'.}}
The ''Oxford Dictionary of Energy Science'' (2017)<ref>{{Citation |last=Jelley |first=Nick |title=A Dictionary of Energy Science |date=2017-01-19 |url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780191826276.001.0001/acref-9780191826276 |access-date=2024-04-08 |publisher=Oxford University Press |language=en-US |doi=10.1093/acref/9780191826276.001.0001 |isbn=978-0-19-182627-6|url-access=subscription }}</ref> defines OPEC as:<ref name=":7" />
{{Blockquote|text=An organization set up in 1960 to coordinate petroleum policies among its member countries, initially with the aim of securing a regular supply to consuming countries at a price that gave a fair return on capital investment.|source=}}
OPEC members strongly prefer to describe their organisation as a modest force for market stabilisation, rather than a powerful anti-competitive cartel. In its defense, the organisation was founded as a counterweight against the previous "[[Seven Sisters (oil companies)|Seven Sisters]]" cartel of multinational oil companies, and non-OPEC energy suppliers have maintained enough market share for a substantial degree of worldwide competition.<ref>{{cite journal |date=June–July 2012 |title=The Global Energy Scene |url=http://www.opec.org/opec_web/static_files_project/media/downloads/publications/OB06_072012.pdf |url-status=live |journal=OPEC Bulletin |volume=43 |pages=24–41 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160909221208/http://www.opec.org/opec_web/static_files_project/media/downloads/publications/OB06_072012.pdf |archive-date=9 September 2016 |access-date=9 April 2016 |number=5}}</ref> Moreover, because of an economic "[[prisoner's dilemma]]" that encourages each member nation individually to discount its price and exceed its production quota,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Browning |first1=Edgar K. |url=http://www.wiley.com/college/browning/0471389161/pdf/ |title=Microeconomics: Theory & Applications |last2=Zupan |first2=Mark A. |date=2004 |publisher=Wiley |isbn=978-0-471-67871-7 |edition=8th |pages=394–396 |chapter=The Prisoner's Dilemma and Cheating by Cartel Members |access-date=5 September 2016 |chapter-url=http://www.wiley.com/college/browning/0471389161/pdf/ch14 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160915032256/http://www.wiley.com/college/browning/0471389161/pdf/ |archive-date=15 September 2016 |url-status=live}}</ref> widespread cheating within OPEC often erodes its ability to influence global oil prices through [[Collective action problem|collective action]].<ref>{{cite news |last=Colgan |first=Jeff |date=16 June 2014 |title=OPEC, the Phantom Menace |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2014/06/16/opec-the-phantom-menace/ |url-status=live |access-date=9 November 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161110043953/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2014/06/16/opec-the-phantom-menace/ |archive-date=10 November 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Van de Graaf |first=Thijs |year=2016 |title=Is OPEC dead? Oil exporters, the Paris agreement and the transition to a post-carbon world |url=https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/8137111/file/8137112.pdf |url-status=live |journal=Energy Research & Social Science |volume=23 |pages=182–188 |doi=10.1016/j.erss.2016.10.005 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190925074356/https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/8137111/file/8137112.pdf |archive-date=25 September 2019 |access-date=25 September 2019 |hdl-access=free |hdl=1854/LU-8137111}}</ref> Political scientist Jeff Colgan has challenged that OPEC is a cartel, pointing to endemic cheating in the organization: "A cartel needs to set tough goals and meet them; OPEC sets easy goals and fails to meet even those."<ref name=":1" />

OPEC has not been involved in any disputes related to the competition rules of the [[World Trade Organization]], even though the objectives, actions, and principles of the two organisations diverge considerably.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Farah |first1=Paolo Davide |last2=Cima |first2=Elena |date=September 2013 |title=Energy Trade and the WTO: Implications for Renewable Energy and the OPEC Cartel |journal=Journal of International Economic Law |volume=16 |issue=3 |pages=707–740 |doi=10.1093/jiel/jgt024 |ssrn=2330416}}</ref> A key US District Court decision held that OPEC consultations are protected as "governmental" acts of state by the [[Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act]], and are therefore beyond the legal reach of US [[competition law]] governing "commercial" acts.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Joelson |first1=Mark R. |last2=Griffin |first2=Joseph P. |year=1975 |title=The Legal Status of Nation-State Cartels Under United States Antitrust and Public International Law |journal=The International Lawyer |volume=9 |issue=4 |pages=617–645 |jstor=40704964}}</ref> Despite popular sentiment against OPEC, legislative proposals to limit the organisation's sovereign immunity, such as the [[NOPEC]] Act, have so far been unsuccessful.<ref>{{cite news |last=Learsy |first=Raymond J. |date=10 September 2012 |title=NOPEC ('No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels Act'): A Presidential Issue and a Test of Political Integrity |work=HuffPost |url=https://www.huffingtonpost.com/raymond-j-learsy/nopec-no-oil-producing-an_b_1869803.html |url-status=live |access-date=6 April 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170603111612/http://www.huffingtonpost.com/raymond-j-learsy/nopec-no-oil-producing-an_b_1869803.html |archive-date=3 June 2017 |quote=Varied forms of a NOPEC bill have been introduced some 16 times since 1999, only to be vehemently resisted by the oil industry.}}</ref>