Now available in OGEL 3 (2024): Achieving Greenhouse Gas Emission Reductions Through the Utilization of Hydrogen: Are Fossil, Low-Carbon and Renewable Hydrogen 'Like Products' Under the GATT?
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- S. Noël
Published 6 November 2024
Achieving Greenhouse Gas Emission Reductions Through the Utilization of Hydrogen: Are Fossil, Low-Carbon and Renewable Hydrogen 'Like Products' Under the GATT?
Abstract
This article addresses how the European Union's (EU) renewable energy directive (RED III) interacts with the World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, using the legal dogmatic method. The RED III essentially establishes a mandatory target of forty-two (42,5) percent of renewable energy in the Union and sectoral targets in the industry and transport sectors by 2030. Hydrogen could be a promising fuel but is predominantly produced from fossil fuel sources (natural gas, coal, and petroleum oil), compared with renewable energy ("bioenergy, solar, wind-power"). Renewable and fossil-based hydrogen could presumably be considered as "like products", which is one of the necessary conditions to the WTO non-discrimination obligations of most-favored-nation and national treatment. Said differentiation would rely on so-called "process and production methods" (PPMs). PPMs can, as such, be intrinsic and regulate the hydrogen's properties or substances incorporated therein, or extrinsic; thus, addressing its manufacture. This article presumes that the above GHG-related PPM is extrinsic, and places it within the general legal debate in relation to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT Agreement). This debate entails that while intrinsic PPMs are legitimate, extrinsic PPMs, are controversial. This article claims that the above GHG-related PPM lawfully differentiates hydrogen manufactures and affords no protectionist measures to domestic hydrogen productions.
Achieving Greenhouse Gas Emission Reductions Through the Utilization of Hydrogen: Are Fossil, Low-Carbon and Renewable Hydrogen 'Like Products' Under the GATT? is part of the OGEL 3 (2024) Special Issue on "Contractual, Legal, and Regulatory Dynamics for Hydrogen Projects and Markets" and is available here www.ogel.org/article.asp?key=4144 (sign in to download).