Resolving the Problems of the WTO Regarding the Renewable Energy Subsides through the European Union regulations

The infinity of renewable energy and its role in providing and ameliorating environmental affairs are but some of the principal rationales behind increasing the investment in the renewable energies. The promotion of investment and costly technology in this industry calls for government subsidies. In spite of the felt necessity of the mentioned measures, the WTO legal system has recognized them as actionable and even sometimes prohibited these subsidies on renewable energy, which indeed have been a major step in the local development and promotion of this industry. As a consequence of such policies, the cases and claimes of Japan and EU against Canada as well as USA against India have been proposed as dispute settlement body. The present study, through the analysis of WTO regulations, is aimed at recognizing the most pivotal challenges of renewable energy subsides; by explicating the structure and policies of the EU regulations, it is also aimed at answering this question: are the EU regulations are harmonious enough with renewable energy to be resorted to for resolving the WTO challenges? Based on the results of the present study, with the inspiration from EU expedient regulations and by putting an end to the win-win relationship between the environmental policies and international trade laws, WTO shall deem the renewable energy subsides under coverage of non-actionable and non-prohibited subsides. It shall do so, however, not unconditionally but by accounting for some specific and tangible criteria. Furthermore, WTO should prevent the deviations of the subsidies by utilizing the balance and proportion testing methods.