International Trade in Energy: A Glance at Selected Issues Welber Barral, Renata Amaral, and Thiago Soares 1 Introduction When talking about international trade of goods, what first comes to mind are the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the several regional integration agreements, such as the European Union (EU) and the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR). When energy is defined as good—whether as renewable energy, like electricity, or non-renewable, as oil—the question becomes a little more complex. Indeed, in considering trade in energy, other variables are included in the equation, such as the environment, investments and subsidies. In addition to that, there is the fact that energy supply and energy security are essential to ensure countries’ eco- nomic growth, which makes the trade in terms of energy especially sophisticated. In the case of the WTO, for example, energy is addressed, in fact, as a good, and there are no specific rules on trade in any form of energy. Although energy-related issues have been discussed within the WTO for quite some time, recently the topic has gained even more importance within the organization, to the extent that strategic countries in the international energy matrix have joined the multilateral system, such as Ecuador, Oman, Saudi Arabia, China, Ukraine and Russia. Others, like Iraq, are preparing themselves for the WTO’s process of accession. In addition, new issues related to the energy sector have emerged, such as those linked to the environmental protection and global warming, or, in terms of imple- mentation of the current WTO rules, questions involving subsidies and renewable energy. W. Barral (*) · R. Amaral (*) Barral M Jorge Consultores Associados, Brasília, Brazil e-mail: welber.barral@barralmjorge.com.br; revamaral@gmail.com T. Soares Hertie School of Governance, Berlin, Germany e-mail: thiago.e.soares@outlook.com © Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018 J. A. Fontoura Costa et al. (eds.), Energy Law and Regulation in Brazil, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73456-9_13 261