Quest for truth: unilateral measures within the climate change-trade nexus

Abstract

This thesis, without trying to forget legal philosophy and jurisprudence, analyses unilateral trade-affecting measures which might be applied by a state or region (e.g. the European Union) to support/promote climate change related policies and how measures could be applied so that the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and related instruments will not end up on collision courses but be able to act on the basis of mutual supportiveness. Chapter 2 mainly focuses on measures which could be used to achieve carbon leakage related goals. Chapter 3 and 4 then switch to the more fruitful application of measures to achieve the UNFCCC objective in a realm of legal principles and rules. Chapter 5 reconsiders possible future conflicts on the basis of chapter 4 and also looks at related issues in the political area. The thesis, inter alia, highlights the advantage not just to focus on doctrinal conceptualization, argues that unilateral measures focusing on the UNFCCC objective can in specific circumstances be compatible with the WTO framework and highlights that conflicts between the WTO and the UNFCCC, both subsystems of the international law system, can be avoided. Furthermore, it also underlines that principles are not irrelevant in the political area, an area which, on the basis of further political decisions, might help to get even more sophisticated mutual supportiveness between the UNFCCC and the WTO.