Export Restriction Of Energy Products Under GATT Article XX (g)

In the 21st century, energy issues become the focus of countries all over the world. The economic pressures are brought to countries by the increasing of the oil price, which leads to the guess of a new energy crisis. Of course, lack of energy is the background of the energy crisis. However, the"non-supply & demand"factor has more influence to the international energy products trade. Under the influence of the potential energy crisis, countries are searching for their guarantee mechanism of the energy supply and more careful to the export of their energy products. So there will be more and more disputes on the export restriction of energy products under the WTO framework.GATT XX (g) is one of the General Exceptions of the WTO, which allows contracting parties to take measures to protect their exhaustible natural resources as the exception of free trade. Because most of energy products belong to the exhaustible natural resources, such an article provides the best legal proof to contracting parties for their protection of energy security. However, in reality, the meaning of GATT XX (g) is not so clear, so contracting parties'eisegesis is quite viable. Moreover the explanations of DSB are disordered, which makes the abuse or misuse of this article also quite viable. For instance, the standard of exhaustible natural resources, the environment protection standard and extraterritorial protection of exhaustible natural resources and so on, remain to be resolved, and DSB even provided inconsistent explanations to some issues before. Because of its defects, GATT XX (g) becomes a potential protective umbrella for contracting parties'export restriction of energy products, which may cause the future energy crisis. But people worry about that, Although GATT XX (g) is used rightly, the export restriction of energy products also can make some negative impacts on the international market. So the conflicts between GATT XX (g) and world energy crisis are released.