Speaker: Manoj Mate, "Global Solar Trade Wars"
November 8, 2017
12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.
UCI School of Law, Room 3500H
GLAS welcomes Professor Manoj Mate, visiting scholar at Harvard Law School's East Asian Legal Studies program, to present his working paper, "Global Solar Trade Wars."
Abstract
This article analyzes the evolving state of international trade law governing green industrial policy through case studies of three recent solar industrial trade disputes in the World Trade Organization: the Canada Feed-in-Tariff (E.U./Japan) dispute, the U.S.—Countervailing Measures (China) dispute, and the ongoing India-Solar Cells(U.S.) dispute. Through close study of these disputes, the article analyzes variation in state institutions of political economy, and asymmetries in the political structure of green industrial policies. The article argues that the existing framework of international trade law has failed to meaningfully address the problem of state opacity in political economy, and to account for fundamental asymmetries in political structure and allocation of power across different systems. The article then analyzes both policy and normative implications of the WTO’s current approach to solar disputes in terms of equity, sustainability, and development in each of these countries. It concludes by examining how both China and India have each adopted distinct approaches to solar industrial development, and the implications of these approaches for the broader global trade governance regime.