The last decade has witnessed the emergence and rise of trade disputes over renewable energy support measures. By pitting trade against the environment, these disputes ignited a considerable debate over the adequacy of the green policy space available under WTO law. This article examines whether and to what extent the first ten years of litigation settled the key issues in this debate by undertaking a systematic analysis of the developments in the case law and in the renewable energy policy landscape. The analysis reveals that the case law has raised more questions than answers and much uncertainty remains as to the scope of the policy space available for the subsidization of renewables. It also highlights how these disputes steered the debate away from the most contentious issue of subsidy regulation to the slam-dunk issue of non-discrimination. In doing so, they helped conceal rather than resolve the green policy space deficit in multilateral renewable energy subsidy governance.

Special Economic Zones (SEZs) have been a huge success and brought a great number of benefits to the whole world. With different kinds of incentives, SEZs have created favorable conditions in order to attract foreign investors. In this article, several specific issues are considered. First, whether SEZs are legal under international economic law (IEL). Second, what kind of specific issues they raise under IEL. Thirdly, what measures governments can take in order not to be challenged. The first section illustrates the definition of SEZs and their rapid development; the second section will consider the interaction between SEZs and international tax law, especially the base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) Action 5; the third section focuses on the relationship between SEZs and investment agreements and the disputes raised as a consequence; the fourth section will talk about SEZs and the World Trade Organization (WTO), as some incentives used by SEZs may not be compatible with WTO regulations. The article shows that SEZs can be harmful. For one thing, tax incentives applied in SEZs may lead to tax evasion, and the competitive circumstances between states may be changed. For another thing, the frequent changes of policies in SEZs may result in indirect expropriation, and investor-state arbitration under investment treaties can be used by foreign investors to protect their SEZ-related benefits. In addition, although WTO rules do not explicitly regulate SEZs, a number of measures, such as subsidies, do fall under the ambit of WTO rules, and these measures cannot be discriminatory.

The WTO concluded in 2012 that subsidized aeronautical research and development (R&D) gave Boeing a head start in product development that caused serious prejudice to the interests of Airbus but later, in 2019, it could not decide how long that head start had lasted. Meanwhile, the WTO concluded in 2018 that launch aid for Airbus aircraft led to innovations that also improved later aircraft models, thereby contributing to serious prejudice to the interests of Boeing. Both conclusions relied on a causation analysis that considered the effects of technological innovation, which makes subsidies used for R&D particularly vulnerable to challenge. This novel analysis may be too broad for the actionable subsidy disciplines of the SCM Agreement.