Freedom of Transit and Access to Pipeline Networks under WTO Law by Vitaliy Pogoretskyy Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017

Abstract

In Freedom of Transit and Access to Pipeline Networks under WTO Law, the author appropriately introduces the topic by stating that energy is featuring increasingly prominently as a topic in international trade law. Indeed, while being a dormant issue in the World Trade Organization (“WTO” forum for decades, the importance of energy in the multilateral trading system can no longer be denied today. The reasons for its growing importance can, inter alia, be attributed to the changing nature of energy generation and global trade in energy, as well as the large number of accessions of major energy producing, exporting and transporting countries to the WTO over the past fifteen years. An example of how the importance of the WTO for energy can no longer be ignored is, for instance, the fact that beyond disputes regarding renewable energy, a case concerning the European Union’s Energy Package and Russia’s access to the EU gas market is currently pending at the WTO (DS476, EU – Energy Package). It may well be that this unprecedented case becomes a turning point for the WTO as a forum for resolving energy trade disputes. Unintentionally, the WTO may be de facto taking over this role from institutions such as the Energy Charter Secretariat.