청정수소 인증제에 대한 통상법적 고찰

A Study on Clean Hydrogen Certification Scheme from the International Trade Law Perspective: Focusing on the TBT Agreements

A clean hydrogen certification scheme can be designed in the form of mandatory technical regulations or voluntary standards, and it is very important by what criteria clean hydrogen will be classified. The technical regulations and standards of the TBT agreement include those for PPMs, and it has been debated whether NPR-PPMs that are not directly related to the final product, such as a clean hydrogen certification scheme, can be included. In particular, in the case of technical regulations that include labeling requirements, such as Korea’s clean hydrogen certification scheme, it can be even more problematic to what extent NPR-PPMs will be applied. Based on the premise that the scope of the TBT agreement can include NPR-PPMs, the issues of international trade law that may arise from the clean hydrogen certification scheme were examined, focusing on the TBT agreement. First of all, the clean hydrogen certification schemes introduced by the central government of WTO member states are likely to be recognized as a ‘technical regulation’ due to its mandatory nature. In addition, inspection, tests and samplings conducted to satisfy the requirements of the technical regulation of the clean hydrogen certification scheme can be evaluated as a ‘conformity assessment procedure’. Even in the case of voluntary ‘standard’, there is also a clean hydrogen certification scheme created by non-governmental standardizing bodies in each country. Therefore, the implications of the clean hydrogen certification scheme as a technical regulation or standard and the related conformity assessment procedure in the TBT agreement were examined.