Chapter 8 Sustainable Energy Democracy and the Multilateral Trade Rules
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Abstract
This chapter examines how the wto’s multilateral trading rules can create both opportunities and obstacles for sustainable energy democracy. It focuses on border carbon adjustments and anti-dumping as concepts of wto law that could contribute to sustainable energy democracy within the multilateral trade regime. It argues that as a measure to limit carbon leakage, border carbon adjustments could be used to contribute to the sustainability aspect of sustainable energy democracy. Furthermore, the rules on anti-dumping could be used to limit, to a certain extent, the unfair distribution of the burdens and benefits of owning and producing energy resources globally, thereby contributing to the democracy aspect of sustainable energy democracy. However, wto law also imposes restrictions on how these rules can be applied to energy. This chapter focuses on trade in fuels in the EU – where anti-dumping measure are used in a controversial way to curb the volume of biofuels imported – as a case study of how these rules play out in practice.