The ECT: Dragging States Down as They Chase a Sustainable Future

The Energy Charter Treaty has interfered with states efforts at climate action significantly, slowing down and even backtracking regulatory reforms for sustainability. In first giving investors overly broad protections that legally shelter from states sovereignty, the ECT oversteps its boundaries in arguing for stability particularly seen in the Rockhopper case, where the tribunal ruled against environmental public interest and Italys police powers. In second enforcing direct financial burdens on states, the ECT also creates both short- and long-term regulatory chill. Despite arguments for the ECT in hopes of its protection of renewables, the Spanish saga demonstrates how it is easily abused, not for just governance, but used purely as aninstrument for private profit, taking advantage of reasonable change to claim compensation. The history of cases that lie behind the ECT has prompted worldwide controversy, and this paper proposes for states to withdraw wholly from the treaty itself, its sunset clause inter se, and to instead establish another treaty exclusively for renewable energy.