Sustainability in EU trade law and policy

This chapter asks two fundamental questions: 1) How can we have international cooperation on climate mitigation in a world of geopolitical confrontation? 2) Is the impact of the international trade system on the environment only negative? The chapter also discusses the EU’s Generalized System of Preferences. By doing so, the chapter takes a comprehensive approach over how the trading system can help mitigate climate change and enhance sustainable energy. The chapter brings together a top-down and bottom-up approach to the governance of sustainability. Furthermore, it analyzes two of the most relevant global regulatory trends in recent international trade agreements, namely climate change and sustainable energy. The chapter takes the novel approach of bringing together law, international political economy (IPE) and international relations (IR) to explain sustainable energy as an academic discipline. It is interdisciplinary and inter-sectoral, combining an analysis of international trade and sustainable energy from the perspectives of law, IPE, and IR - an approach that makes the chapter ground-breaking and unconventional. It applies methods of legal analysis, namely a comprehensive analysis of treaties, case law, and academic writings from scholars as well as literature from other social science disciplines, such as IR and IPE, to help explore the challenges addressed. This chapter challenges the view that trade’s only impact on the environment is negative. It takes the unconventional view that the trading system goes beyond benefiting the economy and society in that it can also contribute to environmental protection, with a specific focus on decarbonization.