Adjudicating Change in Renewable Energy Markets

Organised by

• Department of Economics
• Department of History
• Department of Law
• Max Weber Programme for Postdoctoral Studies
• Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies
• Department of Political and Social Sciences
• Florence School of Transnational Governance
• Environmental Challenges and Climate Change Governance

Renewable energy markets are legally complex, requiring governmental intervention both at point of creation (typically through use of subsidies such as feed-in-tariffs) and then to adjust their later evolution in light of changed circumstances. They are also politically contested due to complex transition challenges. Those challenges encompass both internal dimensions (particularly the needs of domestic workers and regions) and external drivers (not least the importance of meeting international benchmarks). In short, renewable energy markets are structurally characterised by legislative and administrative change. Yet the very same states that are creating these markets are subject to international law constraints that, on first sight at least, push in an opposite normative direction. At its apex (though largely hidden from political discourse), sits the universe of bilateral and regional investment treaties that is designed to deliver certainty and stability to foreign investors and their investments. In the last ten years, foreign investors have launched dozens of claims against European countries (particularly Spain and Italy) seeking compensation for legislative changes to renewable energy markets. In this seminar, I seek to explore the drivers of the system conflict at play in this area, and to identify the possibilities (if any) of reconciliation, surveying both interpretative techniques drawing on political economy considerations as well as models of treaty reform.