Green Peace at the WTO: How the National Security Exception Can Resolve the Conflict Between WTO Rules and Green Industrial Policy

Michael Stevanovich*

Natural disasters that would have once been described as generational have become annual.  To address the worsening climate crisis, many countries have embraced green subsidies to jumpstart renewable technology development.  However, almost all of these subsidies violate international trade rules.  International trade law is fundamentally unequipped to respond to the climate crisis.  A decade of trade disputes over renewable energy has revealed a disconnect between World Trade Organization (WTO) rules and environmental priorities.  If the WTO finds that green subsidies violate international trade rules, members will have to either cut these subsidies or face consequences.  While a major conflict between WTO subsidy rules and green industrial policy has been temporarily avoided, the inability to reconcile trade rules and environmental subsidies threatens both the credibility of the international trade regime and the health of our planet.

This Note argues that the WTO should recognize a limited exception for green industrial policy under GATT Article XXI.  In making this argument, this Note examines previous trade disputes that have involved green industrial policy.  This examination demonstrates the difficulty previous panels have had in resolving this conflict and the instability in their approaches.  Furthermore, this Note explores the WTO’s national security exception and defines the boundaries of Article XXI.  Finally, this Note proposes an interpretation of Article XXI that would allow a WTO panel to finally resolve the conflict between green industrial policy and WTO rules.

*Head Notes Editor, Columbia Journal of Transnational Law; J.D., Columbia Law School, 2026