The Legitimacy And Countermeasures Of Carbon Tariffs Under The Trend Of Humanization

The humanization of international law has become a trend. Humanization emphases on people-oriented and adhere to sustainable development. However, in the field of international trade law, this trend led to the conflict between rights, environmental protection and free trad. As a consequence, new trade barriers is rising and carbon tariff is one of them.The issuance of American Clean Energy And Security Act of 2009 and the collection of the EU aviation carbon tax, push the fight against carbon tariff to climax. The carbon tax bills of the United States and the EU are all built on the basis of cap-and-trade system, so there are some similarities in the design of those system, but the differences are very big.From the structure and design of ACESA, it's only revealed two words "trade protection ".The ACESA do not comply with the WTO general exception (b), also is not in conformity with the WTO general exception (g).While EU legislation, from the point of view of the structure and the design, is indeed intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to slow down the warming of the atmosphere, and to conform to the WTO general exception (g), but because the measures do not conform to the requirements of the "necessity" standard, thus do not meet the WTO general exception (b).Because the U.S. ACESA,the collection of the EU aviation carbon tax are unilateral,unfair,inflexible, so they constitute the "arbitrary or unjustifiable discrimination between countries where the same conditions prevail, or a disguised restriction on international trade". Therefore, these two carbon tax measures are not consistent with the provisions of the general exception of WTO, which are essentially the new trade protections and the emerging green trade barriers.In response to carbon tariffs, as the world's largest greenhouse gas emissions country China can not blindly resist and reject, should actively take the initiative to build up the image of the responsible country. From domestic aspect, based on the existing foundation, China should further activate existing reduction system, fully dig out its potential. From the international aspect, on the one hand, China should make full use of the existing mechanism to maximize interests, and make full use of the procedure rules of WTO to maintain their legal rights. On the other hand, China should launch climate diplomacy actively to establish the image of a responsible big country, in order to grasp the initiative in international climate negotiations.