The European Union Battery Regulation seeks to govern the entire life cycle of electric vehicle batteries. This article critically examines whether the Regulation functions as a genuine catalyst for change towards circularity in the electric vehicle battery value chain, or whether it risks becoming a toothless tiger. It provides a doctrinal legal analysis of the Battery Regulation, informed by interdisciplinary insights, and examines the Regulation's core provisions across the electric vehicle battery value chain, including durability, recycled content mandates, carbon footprint declarations, due diligence obligations and end-of-life management. The analysis demonstrates that enforcement fragmentation, together with regulatory lacunae and ambiguities, may undermine the coherence and effectiveness of the Regulation's substantive framework. These gaps, compounded by geopolitical dependencies embedded in global battery value chains, risk undermining the Regulation's de facto effectiveness, notwithstanding its de jure ambition to establish a circular electric vehicle battery value chain. This article, therefore, advances targeted legal and policy reforms designed to strengthen compliance, remedy structural lacunae, and enhance the Battery Regulation's capacity to drive a genuinely circular and sustainable electric vehicle battery value chain.
This article examines whether upstream petroleum arrangements should be concluded by the state, a national oil company (NOC), or a hybrid structure. Covering licence-and-tax systems, production sharing agreements, service contracts, and risk service contracts, it assesses contracting-party design through five evaluation criteria: attribution and state responsibility; sovereign immunity; dispute resolution and forum selection; domestic public-law constraints; and sanctions and legal risk management. Using doctrinal analysis, comparative institutional assessment, and a structured qualitative framework, the article argues that no model is universally optimal. The preferred model depends on the fit among legal risk, institutional capacity, sovereign credibility, and external constraint conditions.
Paving a path for energy to become more reliable, affordable and cleaner embodies the energy trilemma. Meeting these differing demands requires heterogeneous approaches amongst states. Merely focusing on one aspect of the trilemma to the detriment of the others, or penalising stakeholders for exclusively failing to do enough to lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through hard law obligations, is unconstructive. Instead, what is needed is guidance on how to construct regulatory energy roadmaps. Soft law as an instrument is well suited to provide such guidance and accelerate the transformation of energy systems, without replacing the role of states in the formation of national and international law. For soft law to generate widespread acceptance, standard setting must involve broad geographic and stakeholder participation and account for the fragmented nature of energy-relevant topics. Stakeholders are generally more willing to endorse non-binding standards that make it possible to bridge differences without the fear of forced concessions, let alone impositions. Both industry-driven and government-led standards already steer future energy pathways. This article examines a number of these initiatives and argues that soft law that accounts for national realities could become a fundamental component of the energy regulatory toolbox in the twenty-first century.
This article investigates the conflict between local content (LC) standards in the oil and gas sector and World Trade Organization (WTO) regulations. While states utilise LC measures to encourage industry engagement, local job creation and technology transfer, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the Agreement on Trade-Related Investment Measures (TRIMs) and the Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (ASCM) prohibit discrimination against foreign suppliers or make subsidies conditional on local procurement. With careful reading of the WTO jurisprudence and key disputes, the research finds that countries can pursue development goals with WTO-consistent LC policies. Case studies from Indonesia and Kazakhstan demonstrate both clear violation and nuanced approaches.
The Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) has significant potential for cross-border electricity trade to support the green transition, yet power integration in the subregion remains constrained by a fragmented regulatory environment that fails to address the unique challenges of electricity trade. The multilateral trade rules contain ambiguities, while national regulations often perpetuate inconsistent technical regulations and commercial terms. The absence of a binding regional legal framework exacerbates challenges to power integration in the GMS. This article proposes a comprehensive framework built on five pillars and highlights the role of international law in formalizing commitments, harmonizing standards and facilitating dispute resolution.
This paper examines the socio-legal implications of recent reforms to UK nuclear planning law facilitating the deployment of small modular reactors (SMRs) across England and Wales. The reforms extend planning permissions beyond traditional nuclear sites. These changes create a distinct consent process compared to large nuclear facilities, notably through accelerated timelines and a dedicated regulatory taskforce to expedite approvals and early stakeholder engagement. Applying the energy justice framework, the key issue addressed is whether these reduced-consent reforms compromise procedural fairness, equitable distribution of benefits and burdens, and recognition of environmental risks within affected communities.
This commentary analyses China's Energy Law of 2024, the country's first comprehensive energy framework statute. The law codifies energy security and decarbonisation as co-equal objectives and introduces two key instruments: carbon-based 'dual control' and a demand-side renewable compliance architecture centred on green electricity certificates. Comparing China's certificate mechanism with EU and US models reveals shared integrity challenges amid important contextual differences. To assess whether such framework legislation can avoid symbolic compliance under security stress, this article proposes three implementation tests - delegation clarity, integrity architecture and instrument overlap - offering a transferable lens for evaluating transition governance globally.
As global efforts to address the climate emergency and advance energy security intensify in scale and ambition, studies have documented how energy citizenship, through the empowerment of renewable energy communities (RECs), or ecopreneurs, could provide a democratic and decentralised approach to citizen participation in the clean energy transition. By generating innovative energy solutions from passive energy users to active prosumers, RECs can foster social and economic empowerment while actively decarbonising energy systems. Despite their prospects, RECs face a wide range of policy, legal and institutional barriers that limit their formalisation, registration and market access. While several studies have examined the importance of RECs as a tool for achieving national climate commitments, energy security and low-carbon transition targets, an in-depth examination of the political, legal and regulatory barriers to the successful establishment and operationalisation of RECs, especially in developing countries, has remained absent in the literature. This article is an attempt to fill a gap in this regard. Using Nigeria as a case study, it examines the state of RECs and the political and legal barriers to business sustainability of RECs in a developing country context. The guiding principles of a supportive legal and regulatory landscape are unpacked by drawing lessons from high-Green Growth Index (GGI) jurisdictions such as the United Kingdom.
To decarbonise economies, a rapid deployment of clean energy is essential. Many climate change mitigation scenarios predict that nuclear power must double or even triple by 2050. Yet this ambition clashes with the industry's history of significant project delays, sometimes attributed to environmental impact assessments (EIAs). Proposed reforms have been pushing to simplify these environmental reviews, raising concerns over deregulation and wider environmental harm. This article analyses whether and how EIAs can delay nuclear power plant (NPP) projects in the European Union (EU). It then demonstrates that, by integrating climate, energy and environmental policies, it is possible and desirable to correct EIAs' procedural inefficiencies, while maintaining an equivalent level of environmental rigour. Through a comparative analysis of regulatory regimes in the EU, France and the United States, this article identifies best practices and presents seven recommendations to accelerate nuclear licensing without compromising the integrity of environmental reviews.
Energy sufficiency has become a key pillar of the energy transition. Yet it remains uncertain whether the existing legal framework is adequately suited to support this shift. France stands out as one of the countries where this issue has gained considerable traction in public debate. We thus examine how a state integrating energy sufficiency into its transition policy translates this ambition into legal and regulatory terms. We have developed an innovative and replicable methodology for assessing legal frameworks, introducing a novel approach to legal analysis in this field.
This article examines how the development of Article 6 of the Paris Agreement is shaping the evolution of carbon markets in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the implications for the region's energy interconnectivity and transition. ASEAN member states are at varying stages of establishing carbon pricing systems, from implementing emissions trading schemes to carbon taxes and voluntary markets. However, the operationalisation of Article 6 introduces a high-integrity framework that addresses persistent institutional and technical barriers. Core features such as corresponding adjustments, measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) protocols and centralised registries provide a structural reference for enhancing market credibility and interoperability. The article analyses how Article 6 could play a role in improving governance, legal infrastructure, price signals and MRV requirements in ASEAN. It further considers the indirect role of carbon pricing in influencing energy transition outcomes, including investment decisions, dispatch patterns and cross-border electricity trade. While Article 6 mechanisms are shaping the design of regional carbon markets, their implementation remains at an early stage due to the complexity of international negotiations and differing levels of domestic readiness. The article highlights that the pace and effectiveness of Article 6 uptake in ASEAN will depend on both international rule-making and countries' ability to build the institutional infrastructure required for high-integrity carbon trading.
The European Union's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) represents a significant innovation in the intersection of trade and climate regulation, with profound implications for hydrocarbon-exporting economies such as Qatar. This article examines CBAM's legal consistency under World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, its tension with the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities (CBDR-RC) enshrined in international environmental law, and its distributive impact on developing, energy-reliant states. The article argues that CBAM's legal defensibility within the WTO framework remains contested, and effective Gulf engagement with CBAM requires moving beyond compliance to proactive institution-building, regional coordination, and constructive diplomacy. In conclusion, the article proposes that while CBAM poses acute risks for fossil fuel-dependent economies, it may also catalyse the Gulf Cooperation Council's transition towards more coherent carbon governance and more equitable integration into a carbon-adjusted global trading system.
