Carbon-related Border Adjustment and WTO Law
Abstract
By expounding the legal foundations of border tax adjustments in international trade regulation, this book lays out the scope and limitations within which border carbon adjustments need to operate. The author examines the extent to which countries can lawfully impose border adjustment measures in relation to the carbon footprint of products on importation and exportation. In doing so, she provides a thorough analysis of the provisions of the WTO Agreement applicable to border carbon adjustments, offers a comprehensive review of relevant case law and engages with the extensive literature on the subject. Given the probability of conflict with non-discrimination rules of the GATT and uncertainty over justification of different designs of carbon-related border adjustment schemes under the exceptions of GATT Article XX, the book argues for a negotiated solution and discusses the possibility of the use of border carbon adjustments under preferential trade agreements.
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Analyses of the WTO compatibility of BCAs suggest that a BCA can in principle be designed and implemented in accordance with international trade law, but the details would matter and differ from the elegant theoretical solution with full symmetry.
“Analyses of the WTO compatibility of BCAs (80, 94-99) suggest that it can in principle be designed and implemented in accordance with international trade law, but the details would matter and differ from the elegant theoretical solution with full symmetry.”
From Carbon Leakage, Consumption, and Trade (2022) · cites this paper as [97]
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- Authors
- Holzer, K.
- Corresponding author
- Holzer, Kateryna
- ORCID
- Holzer, Kateryna
- Venue
- Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks
- Publisher
- Edward Elgar Publishing
- Published
- 2014-05-30
- OpenAlex
- W624032467
- Cited by
- 60
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 11 · 2020: 9 · 2019: 1 · 2018: 12 · 2017: 4 · 2016: 4 · 2015: 5
- FWCI
- 6.42
- Type
- book
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks (publishedVersion)
- BORIS (University Library Bern) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › World Trade Organization Law
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law › International Environmental Law and Policies
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Climate Change Policy and Economics
- Keywords
- border carbon adjustment, WTO law, GATT Article XX, non-discrimination, carbon footprint, carbon leakage, preferential trade agreements, international trade regulation, carbon pricing, trade and environment
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