A two‐directional coherence framework for the environment‐trade nexus: A case study on ‘circular’ recycled content requirements and the technical barriers to trade agreement

Abstract This article analyses ‘circular economy measures’ as a novel type of instrument promoting the EU's Fit for 55 objectives. Specifically, the article focuses on the legal coherence between such circular economy measures and the World Trade Organization (WTO) law. We analyse, as a case study, the coherence between the Recycled Content Requirements of the EU's new regulation on batteries (RCR), a product group central to carbon neutral mobility and the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT Agreement). Our scientific contribution is two‐fold: theoretically, the article develops and tests a two‐directional framework of legal coherence to capture the nuances and to identify conflicts and synergies in the interaction between environmental law and trade law. Empirically, the article contributes to law and policies at the environment‐trade nexus. It examines three characteristics of circular economy law, on the one hand, and trade law, on the other, that are prone to raise issues of coherence. Through a bi‐directional coherence framework, laws and policies at the trade‐environment nexus can be understood and developed for sustainability transitions in a new, more granular manner.