EUROPEAN UNION’S RENEWABLE ENERGY DIRECTIVE II TOWARDS INDONESIA’S PALM OIL FROM WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION’S PERSPECTIVE (S002353)

Indonesia is about to take legal action at the World Trade Organization (WTO) to challenge the European Union (EU) through the Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) relating to the establishment of Renewable Directive II (RED II). The plan was raised due to RED II classified Indonesia’s palm oil as a high-risk plantation according to ILUC (Indirect Land Used Change) theory. This categorization is believed to have impacted Indonesia’s palm oil market and would endanger the market from time to time. Moreover, the EU is suspected to have violated the national treatment principle under Article III General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) by discriminating Indonesia’s palm oil to boost their own the like domestic oils

The writing objective is identifying which one between RED II and Article III GATT is more prioritized than another from jus cogen perspective and attest whether the NTP violation does exist by looking at the fulfillment of elements under the Article.

Normative legal research is the methodology being used in this writing. It puts law as an object which results prescriptive and hence this research also examines contained prescription in RED II and Article III GATT as the objects.

The results of this research show that regardless of the jus cogen status, GATT is superior to Red II according to Article 53 VCLT and Article 38 ICJ Statute. It also shows that Indonesia’s palm oil and EU domestic oils like RO, SBO, SFO, etc are like products under a generic analysis of Article III GATT’s elements and REGULATION (EU) 2019/1344 of 12 August 2019 imposing a provisional countervailing duty on imports of biodiesel originating in Indonesia.

The research suggests Indonesia do more studies regarding the impact of the establishment of RED and doing some efforts like mapping the areas of legal palm oil plantation and intensifying the test to obtain or upgrade green certification for involved local companies would be necessary as well to avoid the EU bringing general exception to fight back accusation.