The Study On The Legality Of Carbon Tariffs Under Multilateral Legal System

At present, as the climate change has become an international hot-topic, energy conservation and emission reduction has become an important issue concerned all over the world. According to the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, compared with developed countries, developing countries do not need to bear the mandatory emission reduction responsibility, so, making the developed countries have the sense of unfair in bearing the responsibility and obligation for emission reduction. Therefore, developed countries intend to draw developing countries into the rank of the mandatory emission reduction. Hence, the concept of carbon tariff on collecting developing countries’high carbon imports has emerged as the times require and become the tool of developed countries in making up unbalance sense and preventing carbon leakage. This dissertation chooses the legitimacy of carbon tariff under the multilateral legal system to conduct in-depth research; from the national interest as the starting point, with a view to the research of this dissertation, could provide relevant references to China to protect of lawful rights and interests of export enterprises China, deal with the green barriers abroad, and promote the perfection of the relevant carbon tariff legal system in our country; this topic has the importance and necessity of a certain theoretical and practical significance in.The main content of this dissertation is mainly divided into the following four parts: the first part is an overview of carbon tariff theory which summarizes the definition and the features of carbon tariffs, deeply analyzes the carbon tariff proposals of the United States and the European Union, proposes the current academic circles on questioning the legitimacy of carbon tariffs, and draws forth the content of the next chapter; the second part is the legitimacy analysis of the carbon tariffs under the rules of WTO, this dissertation states that carbon tariffs do not breach the MFN principle, the national treatment principle, the tariff reduction principle, and the cancel the quantity principle, under Article20of GATT, the carbon tariff is legitimate; the third part is the legality analysis of carbon tariffs under the international convention, this part discusses the legitimacy of carbon tariffs under the "United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change" and "Kyoto Protocol", considers that the carbon tariff is not prohibited by International Convention, with no infringement of other country’s sovereignty, and is in line with the "common but differentiated responsibilities" principle; the forth part is the legal measures of China dealing with carbon tariffs, this part proposes the standpoint China should adopt and relevant measures in the two levels of international law and the domestic law.