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US–Renewable Energyis the last in a series of WTO disputes involving subsidies schemes with local content requirements. Local content requirements (LCRs) are highly discriminatory and trade distortive instruments and therefore all cases concerning green energy have been found to violate WTO law. However, recent jurisprudence has developed a different definition of prohibited LCRs under the GATT and the SCM agreement, the latter allowing for some leeway to define origin of products under a government subsidy scheme. Depending how the subsidy scheme is framed, it will be able to be excused from the GATT's more stringent prohibition of LCRs, this raises question of consistency in the application of the LCRs prohibition. Moreover, we review a simple and robust approach that modern welfare economics suggests for framing discussions of subsidy policy. We apply this approach to the case of renewable energy subsidies and discuss some complexities with respect to local content requirements. In conclusion, this allows us to critically assess and review proposals to increase coherence between WTO subsidy policy and green energy promotion policies and submit proposals to achieve better suited WTO subsidy rules.

US-Renewable Energy is the last in a series of WTO disputes involving subsidies schemes with local content requirements. Local content requirements (LCRs) are highly discriminatory and trade distortive instruments and therefore all cases concerning green energy have been found to violate WTO law. However, recent jurisprudence has developed a different definition of prohibited LCRs under the GATT and the SCM agreement, the latter allowing for some leeway to define origin of products under a government subsidy scheme. Depending how the subsidy scheme is framed, it will be able to be excused from the GATT’s more stringent prohibition of LCRs, this raises question of consistency in the application of the LCRs prohibition. Moreover, we review a simple and robust approach that modern welfare economics suggests for framing discussions of subsidy policy. We apply this approach to the case of renewable energy subsidies and discuss some complexities with respect to local content requirements. In conclusion, this allows us to critically assess and review proposals to increase coherence between WTO subsidy policy and green energy promotion policies and submit proposals to achieve better suited WTO subsidy rules.

Published: 02 April 2020 We critically assess the Appellate Body (AB) report on the Brazil–Taxation dispute, taken to the World Trade Organisation by the European Union and Japan, and encompassing seven different Brazilian industrial programmes granting tax benefits to different firms and products. The trigger of the dispute was most likely the automotive sector programme, instituted under pressure from the local industry and without much attention to effects on consumers or imports. The resulting WTO case underscores some salient issues related to the WTO compatibility of subsidy programmes, in particular the application of the National Treatment rules to subsidies provided exclusively to domestic producers, and the identification of local content requirements, prohibited under the Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (SCM). The AB diverged from the Panel report and its jurisprudence on those issues. The AB tried to reconcile the existence of legitimate eligibility criteria in subsidy programmes and their discriminatory features with WTO rules under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and the SCM. However, the legal test, developed by the AB in this dispute to distinguish prohibited local content requirements from legitimate eligibility criteria, may facilitate circumvention of the SCM prohibition of local content requirements and have important impacts on trade flows. Puccio acknowledges the receipt of funding under the H2020 grant agreement project ‘Realizing Europe's Soft Power in External Cooperation and Trade (RESPECT),’ grant agreement no. 77068.

The Brazil-Taxation dispute concerns the complaints taken to the World Trade Organisation by the European Union and Japan against seven different Brazilian industrial subsidy programmes. One concerned the automotive sector and represents a clear case of policies dictated by strong domestic political-economy forces, with little attention to impacts on consumers or imports. The ensuing WTO dispute raises important issues concerning the WTO-compatibility of subsidy measures. In particular, the Appellate Body (AB) reversed the panel findings with respect to two issues: the extent to which subsidy measures can be exempted from complying with National Treatment rules under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, and the identification of local content requirements (LCRs), which are prohibited under the Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (SCM). In particular, the AB considered that subsidies, if not based on discriminatory taxation, could be justified under the GATT and could have some discriminatory elements without violating the National Treatment disciplines. Furthermore, it concluded that legitimate eligibility criteria under a subsidy programme should not be construed as prohibited LCRs under the SCM. However, the test devised by the AB to distinguish legitimate eligibility criteria from prohibited LCRs could facilitate circumvention of the LCRs prohibition under the SCM.

In a world of increasing globalisation and liberalisation, production and value chains become global with inputs sourced from all over the world and production processes being scattered across countries. This tendency renders more difficult the definition of origin of a good. However, being trade liberalisation still far from non-discriminatory, the concept of origin becomes cardinal for the granting of benefits, as well as for sanctioning unfair trade practices. Globalisation has therefore brought forward a multiplication of varieties of domestic contents regulations imposed by States or groups of States (in bilateral or regional regimes) in order to discriminate between the goods receiving benefits and those whose exports are subject to trade remedies. We are going to consider here two regimes that involve, inter alia, the use of domestic content rules, preferential trade regimes and their preferential rules of origin regimes, and anti-dumping circumvention rules. Very few authors (if none) have treated jointly the question of WTO regulation of preferential rules of origin and anti-circumvention rules. However, both regulations, albeit being different and occurring in different contexts, have similarities in their objectives and in the challenges they create to the WTO legal system. Through the analysis of preferential rules of origin and anti-dumping circumvention measures, the article’s main objective is also to have a broader reflection on the concept of circumvention at large and its discipline within the WTO system.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) was created at Bretton Woods, with the aim of promoting monetary cooperation, facilitate growth and trade, and maintain exchange rate stability. Such exchange rate stability was considered fundamental for the smooth development of trade relations. The Union's representation at the IMF is an example of the complexities involved in the delimitation of European Union(EU) external relations competences. The Economic and Monetary Union is characteristic of a double-speed and asymmetric policy. Indeed, while some Member States have united in a currency union, others have chosen to preserve their own currency. While economic policy is only subject to coordination, for members of the Euro zone, monetary policy is an exclusive competence. In the future though, it is more likely that the greater political opposition of Member States towards rationalizing their IMF chairs will be countered by sustained pressure from developing countries. Keywords:Economic union; European Union(EU); International Monetary Fund (IMF); Member States; Monetary Union