Where is the Energy: Object and Purpose of the ECT under the Sunset Clause Scrutiny
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Abstract
This article aims to find the equilibrium between the compatibility of the object and purpose of the Energy Charter Treaty (“ECT”) and the plan of reduction of the 20-year protection of the sunset clause which becomes the hindrance of States to fully commit with their environmental obligations in the face of climate change. In so doing, a qualitative, normative, and doctrinal approach will be employed to elaborate, dissect, and analyse the issues. In producing the analysis of the issue, this article assembles primary sources (original legal texts) and secondary sources (cases, books, commentaries, preparatory work, newspaper articles, online sources) to meaningfully find the object and purpose of the ECT and its interpretation and implementation. The finding shows that the object and purpose is to enhance energy co-operation through protection of investment and safeguard towards the environment. Thus, the sunset clause reduction plan is compatible with the ECT’s object and purpose.
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References
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Ansari, Salamah, and R Rajesh Babu. “5. North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Yearbook of International Environmental Law 29 (2018): 390–97.
Bárcena, Lucía, and Fabian Flues. “From Solar Dream to Legal Nightmare.” Transnational Institute (TNI) and PowerShift, 2022.
Beckman, Karel. “Interview: A New Energy Charter Treaty as a Complement to the Paris Agreement.” Borderlex, 2020. https://borderlex.net/2020/06/18/interview-a-new-energy-charter-treaty-as-a-complement-to-the-paris-agreement-on-climate-change/.
Borowy, Iris. “Hazardous Waste: The Beginning of International Organizations Addressing a Growing Global Challenge in the 1970s.” Worldwide Waste: Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies 2, no. 1 (2019).
Buffard, Isabelle, and Karl Zemanek. “The" Object and Purpose" of a Treaty: An Enigma?” Austrian Review of International and European Law Online 3, no. 1 (1998): 311–43.
Dajic, Sanja V. “The Achmea Cases-Story on Treaty Interpretation, Forum Competition and International Law Fragmentation.” Zbornik Radova 52 (2018): 491.
Dall’Agnola, Giovanni. “Italy’s Reduction of Existing Renewable Energy Incentives: The Ruling of the CJEU on the Compatibility of the Spalma-Incentivi Decree with EU Law.” Diritto Del Commercio Internazionale, 2021, 783–805.
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———. “The Energy Charter Treaty: A Reader’s Guide.” Energy Charter Treaty. Brussels, 2002.
———. The International Energy Charter Treaty (2016). https://www.energycharter.org/fileadmin/DocumentsMedia/Legal/ECTC-en.pdf.
European Energy Charter Conference Secretariat. “Basic Agreement,” 1992. https://www.energycharter.org/fileadmin/DocumentsMedia/ECT_Drafts/4_-_BA_6__21.01.93_.pdf.
Fisher, Toby. “The Modernised Energy Charter Treaty: The New Text - Kluwer Arbitration Blog.” Kluwer Arbitration Blog, 2022. https://arbitrationblog.kluwerarbitration.com/2022/10/15/the-modernised-energy-charter-treaty-the-new-text/.
Gordon, Kathryn, and Joachim Pohl. “Investment Treaties over Time-Treaty Practice and Interpretation in a Changing World,” 2015.
Haugland, Torleif, Helge Ole Bergesen, and Kjell Roland. Energy Structures and Environmental Futures. Clarendon Press, 1998.
Hobér, Kaj. The Energy Charter Treaty: A Commentary. Oxford University Press, 2020.
Horbach, Nathalie L. J. T. “Nuclear Protocol of the Energy Charter Treaty.” Journal of Energy & Natural Resources Law 13, no. 3 (1995): 163–77.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change,” 2022. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGIII_FullReport.pdf.
“Italy.” Accessed June 16, 2023. https://www.energycharter.org/who-we-are/members-observers/countries/italy/.
Jiang, Naihua, Wang Liping, and Kishor Sharma. “Trends, Patterns and Determinants of Foreign Direct Investment in China.” Global Business Review 14, no. 2 (2013): 201–10.
Jonas, David S, and Thomas N Saunders. “The Object and Purpose of a Treaty: Three Interpretive Methods.” Vand. J. Transnat’l L. 43 (2010): 565.
Josephson, Paul R. “Chernobyl and Its Aftermath.” Slavic Review 50, no. 3 (1991): 680–82.
Kikarea, Eirini. “Brexit and Preferential Trade Agreements: Issues of Termination and Survival Clauses.” Legal Issues of Economic Integration 46, no. 1 (2019).
Konoplyanik, Andrei, and Thomas Walde. “Energy Charter Treaty and Its Role in International Energy.” J. Energy Nat. Resources L. 24 (2006): 523.
Kouroutakis, Antonios Emmanouil. “Sunset Clauses in International Law and Their Consequences for EU Law.” Policy Department for Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs, European Parliament, 2022. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2022/703592/IPOL_STU(2022)703592_EN.pdf.
Leal-Arcas, Rafael. Commentary on the Energy Charter Treaty. Edward Elgar Publishing, 2018.
Levy, Walter J. “Oil and the Decline of the West.” Foreign Affairs 58, no. 5 (1980): 999–1015.
“List of Cases - Energy Charter Treaty.” Accessed June 4, 2023. https://www.energychartertreaty.org/cases/list-of-cases/.
Liu, Chunbao. “11 China’s Evolving International Investment Treaty Policy towards Liberalism.” Multilateralism and Regionalism in Global Economic Governance: Trade, Investment and Finance 92 (2012): 155.
Morgandi, Tibisay, and Lorand Bartels. “Exiting the Energy Charter Treaty under the Law of Treaties.” King’s Law Journal, 2023, 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/09615768.2023.2196834.
Odermatt, Jed. “Is EU Law International? Case C-741/19 Republic of Moldova v Komstroy LLC and the Autonomy of the EU Legal Order.” European Papers-A Journal on Law and Integration 2021, no. 3 (2021): 1255–68.
Omboga, Hildah Kerubo. “Era of Decarbonization, Energy Efficiency on Existing Ships (EEXI) and Carbon Intensity Indicators (CII) Implication on Charter Parties,” 2022.
Povinec, Pavel, Scott Fowler, and Murdoc Baxter. “Chernobyl & the Marine Environment: The Radiological Impact in Context.” IAEA Bulletin 38, no. 1 (1996): 18–22.
Robinson, Ludmilla Katherine. “Altruism or Eurocentrism?: The Energy Charter Treaty, Direct Foreign Investment in Energy Resources and Infrastructure, and the Treaty’s Implications for Australia,” 2003.
Salvatore, Lea Di. Investor-State Disputes in the Fossil Fuel Industry. International Institute for Sustainable Development, 2021.
Shih, Wen-Chen. “Energy Security, GATT/WTO, and Regional Agreements.” Nat. Resources J. 49 (2009): 433.
Sinclair, Ian McTaggart. The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. Manchester University Press, 1984.
“Statistics.” Accessed June 16, 2023. https://www.energychartertreaty.org/cases/statistics/.
Suatean, Irina. “CJEU: Intra-EU Arbitration under the ECT Is Incompatible with EU Law. Brief on CJEU’s Judgment in the Case of Republic of Moldova v Komstroy.” Rom. Arb. J. 15 (2021): 133.
Verbeek, Bart-Jaap. “The Modernization of the Energy Charter Treaty: Fulfilled or Broken Promises?” Business and Human Rights Journal, 2023, 1–6.
Voitsekhovitch, Oleg, Umberto Sansone, Mark Zhelesnyak, and Dimitri Bugai. “Water Quality Management of Contaminated Areas and Its Effects on Doses from Aquatic Pathways,” 1996.
Walker, J. Samuel. Three Mile Island: A Nuclear Crisis in Historical Perspective. Vol. 41. Univ of California Press, 2004.
“Written Notifications of Withdrawal from the Energy Charter Treaty,” 2023. https://www.energycharter.org/media/news/article/written-notifications-of-withdrawal-from-the-energy-charter-treaty/.