The Applicability of the Law of the WTO to Green Energy Security

This chapter explores a new perspective for the debate surrounding green energy disputes within the current WTO rules. Studies of green energy trade under the WTO have predominantly focused on the balance between WTO obligations and domestic public policy space for green energy initiatives as a way to address environmental and climate change objectives. This chapter, however, analyses whether there is any flexibility within the current WTO rules, specifically the GATT exceptions, and the interpretations given to them, that permit trade restrictive measures that support national green energy policies with a view of ensuring energy security. Overall, this chapter demonstrates that (i) green energy development has increasingly come to be associated with energy security in the WTO jurisprudence, and (ii) there might be some room for green energy security within the defences under GATT Articles III:8(a), Article XX(a) and (j) and Article XXI. However, these defences have limited applicability and may also have undesirable outcomes.