Ensuring the availability of basic resources and energy services, in adequate quantities and at reasonable prices, is a vital aspect of national energy policy everywhere. Hence, transnational pipeline projects for the transportation of oil and gas products play a significant role in the global quest for energy security. The construction and operation of cross-border pipeline systems from producing countries to consumer markets entail huge financial commitments for investors. Likewise, such long-term infrastructure projects straddling several jurisdictions have implications for the rights of livelihood-affected people and may adversely impact the environmental sustainability along the project area. This Article seeks to identify and understand the framework models that undergird the regional pipeline networks, against the backdrop of the evolving legal norms and business practices. It further seeks to examine the ways in which the competing rights and interests of different stakeholders are balanced and adjusted. Drawing upon the rich variety of international pipeline-related legal arrangements established in the last half century, the Article pays closer attention to the Energy Charter Treaty, the only multilateral legal instrument dealing exclusively with the energy sector. Further, the Article contends that given the strategic dimensions of the energy sector, extra-legal factors such as the extraterritorial over-reach of US domestic legislations and associated foreign policy considerations, structurally influence the development of an international legal framework for regional gas pipeline system in South Asia and elsewhere.