The Clean Energy Industry Subsidies And Wto Compliance

The fossil energy has been abused and is getting exhausted. Many governments are now casting their eyes upon the clean energy industry, trying to support the development of such industry. However, the clean energy industry is a new-born industry, and the cost of production is so tremendous that governmental support and subsidies are crucial for the development of such industry. In fact, most of the governments are very lenient at granting subsidies to clean energy industries. However, such subsidies, granted by the governments to a specific industry, are very likely to be regarded as subsidy which violates The Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures ("SCM Agreement").This thesis consists of four chapters. The First Chapter is a brief introduction of the concept and types of fossil energy and clean energy, followed by the reason for the development of clean energy industry and also a brief introduction of the subsidy measures of some of the countries. The Second Chapter is an analysis of the rules and cases regarding SCM Agreement, focusing on the definition of "specific subsidy" and "prohibited subsidy", and followed by the introduction of the rules and practice of the regulation regarding subsidies and countervailing measures of the U.S.A. The Third Chapter is a detailed analysis of the petition report from United Steelworkers ("USW") against China, focusing on the petition regarding the subsidies granted by the Chinese government and the relevant rules and regulations of China, and also the WTO negotiation request filed by the U.S government. Because of the interrelationship between 301 invetigation and negotiation under WTO, this part explains the necessity to assess the potential risk underlying 301 investigation from a WTO compliance point of view. The Forth Chapter is a summary of the currently applicable subsidy measures of China, and also with brief comment and analysis of such measures, trying to analyze whether they are prohibited subsidies and actionable subsidies as measured by WTO rules. In addition, this chapter tries to suggest some possible solutions to the subsidy measure at issue based upon the textual analysis of SCM Agreement.This thesis is an attempt to interrelate the WTO rules and the USW petition report, trying to have an outlook into the subsidy measure of clean energy industry, and with the hope that this thesis may be of some help to the solution of this issue.