This article analyzes renewable energy disputes in the World Trade Organization (WTO), explores the specific WTO norms that have been, and are likely to be, engaged by trade-distortive measures that WTO Members may seek to argue have been taken to promote renewables, and advocates implementing stronger governance of energy trade and provides an analysis of the WTO's treatment of renewable energy. It also discusses the impact of subsidies on different forms of energy and whether feed-in tariffs count as subsidies in the WTO context. Our conclusion is that the main obstacles to the scale-up and take-up of renewable energy are not normative/institutional per se. Rather, they are economic. The only systemic 'obstacle' that the WTO presents is its requirement that measures not be disguised mercantilism and that they be applied even-handedly. The WTO system, as it stands, could, and does, accommodate bona fide non-discriminatory measures that promote the scale-up and take-up of renewable energy. After all, we see that it tolerates conventional energy subsidies, which certainly are not predicated on the general exceptions to WTO rules or other dispensations, as these appear in the covered agreements. That said, while the system, as it stands, is considerably flexible towards externalities such as environmental protection objectives, further trade liberalization remains the system's principal objective.

The WTO and the broader international trade regime have seen an explosion of challenges to government support for renewable energy in the last seven years, while no country has brought a formal dispute challenging fossil fuel subsidies in the GATT/WTO's history. This pattern is puzzling because global fossil fuel subsidies dwarf global renewable energy subsidies. Moreover, it suggests that WTO rules may slow the transition to clean energy. Renewable energy technology must compete with highly subsidized fossil fuels, while trade disputes effectively restrict subsidization only for the former. Existing explanations for the absence of trade challenges to fossil fuels support policies have focused primarily on the lack of a mandate within the WTO. Major fossil fuel exporters have not historically been GATT/WTO members; WTO rules allegedly do not apply to energy or are inadequate to deal with the specifics of energy trade; or even if they do, nations have developed separate institutions, such as the IEA or the Energy Charter Treaty, to govern energy. This article argues that, although these explanations have some explanatory power, they cannot fully or satisfactorily account for the pattern of WTO energy disputes in light of the recent focus on some forms of energy in the WTO but not others. Instead, I hypothesize that the economic diversification of energy-producing countries plays a major role in driving challenges to renewable energy support policies, but not fossil fuel support policies. It does so in two ways. First, states challenging energy support policies expect to have greater success in changing the respondent's behavior when the respondent has diversified exports. Renewable energy technologies tend to be produced in countries with diversified economies, while fossil fuel reserves are located overwhelmingly in countries with little diversification in their exports. Second, under what I term the loss aversion hypothesis, states may be more likely to challenge new trade restrictions, rather than similar but long-standing trade restrictions. The loss-aversion hypothesis suggests that trade challenges will arise more in sectors of the economy in which innovation leads to competition, as opposed to in mature sectors of the economy. Economic diversification, in turn, is a good predictor of innovation. As applied to energy, economic diversification contributes to innovation and competition in the renewables sector - and hence triggers demand for new trade restrictions - but not the fossil fuel sector, even though trade restrictions have a long history in that sector as well.

This paper analyzes renewable energy-related international economic disputes - both at the World Trade Organization (WTO) and investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS) before an arbitral tribunal as provided under investment treaties - to establish how their adjudication is redefining the norms of interaction between the international legal regimes for trade, investment and climate change. First, it will highlight how dispute settlement in international economic law is sensitive to the current realities of climate change and driving countries to secure greater regulatory space for renewable energy under newly negotiated trade and investment agreements. Second, it will analyze how changing geopolitical relations in the international economic regime are shaping shifts in the concept of differentiation under the climate regime. It uses the illustrative example of India, which increasingly finds itself at the crossroads of trade, investment and climate change, to argue that the blurring of lines between developed and developing countries' measures in the renewable energy sector, as witnessed through renewable energy-related trade and investment disputes, have had an effect in diluting the concept of differentiation within the climate regime.

This incisive book examines the interaction between international climate law and international trade law for the promotion of renewable energy. Alessandro Monti utilises the emerging principle of mutual supportiveness to inform and guide his analysis of the specific interactions between climate and trade law in the renewable energy sector.

This book shows how the links between energy security and national and international law and policies on green energy pose challenges to a transition towards a green energy system. Based on empirical work carried out in two very different country case studies – Great Britain and Brazil – this book attempts to foster a better understanding of the role played by energy security in constructing and deconstructing green energy policy initiatives. The broad range of views raised in national contexts leads to legal disputes in international forums when attempts are made to address the issues of this energy security/green energy interplay. As such, building on the findings of the case studies, this book then analyses the interplay between energy security and green energy development in international trade law as encapsulated in the law of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Finally, the author proposes a way forward in creating the legal space in the law of the WTO for trade restrictive measures aimed at ensuring green energy security.

The issue of greater utilization of renewables in energy supply-mix has become a priority environmental agenda in many countries. Feed-in incentives, quota schemes, public tenders and net metering are common support programmes that are designed to encourage the production and consumption of electricity generated from renewable energy sources. Promotion policies of this kind have provoked a number of international disputes at both global and regional levels. This article examines disputes brought to the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Court of Justice of the European Union (“Court of Justice”) and investor-state tribunals, and explores some intersectional implications and comparisons for the government measures in question. While implementation of “green” electricity support schemes in compliance with the respective legal regimes will definitely minimize international frictions, intensification of cross-border exchanges of renewable electricity represents an additional tool that could be used for that purpose.

Through the use of the recent litigation on renewable energy subsidies in the World Trade Organization ('WTO') as case-study, this paper highlights the importance of methodology in legal analysis and, in particular, of integrity, coherence and legitimacy. Reference is made to those cases where, in presence of pressing policy considerations, the adjudicator is led to commit serious errors in order to reach what is perceived as a just and desirable outcome. It is sometimes the case that adjudicators are called to distinguish a 'good' policy from a 'bad' one, and, if the regulatory framework is not sufficiently responsive to such distinctions, the act of accommodation of law and policy may lead to 'ugly' constructions of the law. The twist of this course of conduct is that the effects of legal interpretation tweaking might not be easily confined to the case at hand and may have broader, negative implications for the legal system at large. Rather than resolving into a simple criticism of adjudicating bodies, the paper argues that the ultimate responsibility for dispute settlement mistakes caused by policy pressures is that of law-makers and their inability to take the lead and reform the law.

Starting from the premise that a multilateral legal framework is the surest way to achieve predictability and transparency under conditions of increasing reliance on internationally traded energy, the essays gathered in this book treat the many complex interlocking issues raised by examining that desideratum in the light of current reality. Concentrating on the application of WTO agreements to energy trade - as well as energy-related issues addressed in the current WTO negotiations - the authors offer in-depth discussion and analysis of such issues as the following: the effectiveness of existing WTO agreements in addressing issues pertinent to energy trade how restrictive practices of energy endowed countries can be tackled under existing international trade rules; existing frameworks for investment in highly capital-intensive energy infrastructure projects;and conditions for access to pipelines and transmission grids; regulation of energy services; bioenergy development and trade; energy issues addressed in the WTO accession negotiations of energy endowed countries; international instruments of resolution of energy-related disputes.

"This volume draws on a diverse range of international academic expertise and practical experience to enhance the reader's understanding of the shortcomings of existing international trade and investment law disciplines in their application to the multi-faceted nature of energy, and to explore possible avenues to bridge the gap between different areas of international law, with the ultimate goal of paving the way to a multi-faceted and comprehensive approach to the subject matter"--

This Special Report is relevant to those interested in learning about the scope for disputes in the renewables sector, how they can be avoided, and how arbitration can best be deployed to prevent delay, resolve disputes which might otherwise jeopardise project completion and operation and help push the energy transition forward.