Some Common Concerns was written by PLATFORM and published with Corner House, Friends of the Earth & Kurdish Human Rights Project in October 2002. The book imagines what the proposed Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline system would be like if it were built. It recounts the 13 years of planning, the political positioning of the three host countries (and crucially of the USA and Britain), the strategic manoeuvring of BP and its partner companies. The book examines the experience of BP’s three biggest existing pipeline systems, in the North Sea, in Alaska and in Colombia – and asks whether the similar patterns of environmental damage, human rights issues, economic injustices can be expected from the AGT pipelines system.

By creating a picture of the proposed pipelines system and the complex Carbon Web of organisations backing it (led by BP), the book helped civil society and campaigners challenge the corporations & government driving this project. Read Platform’s “sequel” to Some Common Concerns –> The Oil Road – A Journey from the Caspian to the City, due out in September with Verso.