Allocating the Burdens of Climate Action: Consumption-Based Carbon Accounting and the Polluter-Pays Principle

Action must be taken to combat climate change. Yet, how the costs of climate action should be allocated among states remains a question. One popular answer—the polluter-pays principle (PPP)—stipulates that those responsible for causing the problem should pay to address it. While intuitively plausible, the PPP has been subjected to withering criticism in recent years. It is timely, following the Paris Agreement, to develop a new version: one that does not focus on historical production-based emissions but rather allocates climate burdens in proportion to each state’s annual consumption-based emissions. This change in carbon accounting results in a fairer and more environmentally effective principle for distributing climate duties

The Institutional Fragmentation of International Intellectual Property Law in Pacific Rim: Authority and Legitimacy, Regime Interaction and Future Institutional Development in a 'World Society'

Under the context of institutional fragmentation of international IP law in this world society, the international IP law in Pacific Rim is in a flux with various international IP legal actors, including TRIPS, WIPO, CBD, TPP, RECP, FTAAP, etc. With the method of socio-legal analysis emphasizing and basing itself on authority and legitimacy, interaction of IP regimes and future institutional development, this paper investigates the historical evolution of international IP regimes in Pacific Rim and their interactions, paying particular attention to the analysis of two concepts (authority and legitimacy) onto those international IP regimes and their competitive gaming. The present literatures have shed light on some inter-institutional interactions and forum competitions in some subfields of international law (like International Law of the Sea, International Environmental Protection, International Fishery Regulation) as well as some international IP regimes and normative rules specifically, with some descriptive, analytical and interpretative insights unfolded, notwithstanding the lack of deep-going studies focusing on the evolutionary changes and regime competition contextualized from a systematic and structural perspective. After the examination of the current configuration of international IP legal regimes in the Pacific Rim, the core research questions hereinto consist of: how this “institutional fragmentation” would affect the authority and legitimacy of international IP legal regimes and subsequently the international law-making process in international IP law; and what kinds of further implications for future institutional development of international IP law can be deduced. Then predictable trends on the institutional developments and its fragmentation of Pacific Rim’s international IP law, mainly driven forward by China and US, could be deduced.published_or_final_versio

THE NEW POOR AT OUR GATES: GLOBAL JUSTICE IMPLICATIONS FOR INTERNATIONAL TRADE AND TAX LAW

The Article explains why international trade and tax arrangements should advance global wealth redistribution in a world of enhanced economic integration. Despite the indisputable importance of global poverty and inequality, contemporary political philosophy stagnates over the controversy of whether distributive justice obligations should extend beyond the political framework of the nation state. This stagnation results from the difficulty of reconciling liberal impartiality with notions of state sovereignty and accountability. The Article offers an alternative approach that bypasses the controversy of the current debate. It argues that international trade results in relational distributive duties when domestic parties engage in transactions with foreign parties that suffer from an endowed vulnerability—such as extreme poverty prevalent in the developing world. These relational duties differ from traditional distributive claims because they rely on actual economic relationships, rather than upon hypothetical social-contract scenarios. The Article establishes that in a competitive market, private parties cannot address these relational distributive duties by themselves, because doing so would put them at a competitive disadvantage, and argues that the only common-action solution to this systemic problem in the current global political setting is wealth transfers among states. The Article proceeds to suggest some policy implication of this normative analysis in the field of international tax law. It points out that the allocation of taxing rights is a form of wealth allocation that divides globalization\u27s revenue-proceeds among nations. As such, tax allocation arrangements should help correct international trade relationships that fail to meet relational distributive standards. This discussion stresses a point frequently neglected by both the tax and political philosophy literatures—that real-world attempts to promote a more just distribution of global wealth could greatly benefit from integrating distributive considerations in tax allocation arrangements

THE NEW POOR AT OUR GATES: GLOBAL JUSTICE IMPLICATIONS FOR INTERNATIONAL TRADE AND TAX LAW

The Article explains why international trade and tax arrangements should advance global wealth redistribution in a world of enhanced economic integration. Despite the indisputable importance of global poverty and inequality, contemporary political philosophy stagnates over the controversy of whether distributive justice obligations should extend beyond the political framework of the nation state. This stagnation results from the difficulty of reconciling liberal impartiality with notions of state sovereignty and accountability. The Article offers an alternative approach that bypasses the controversy of the current debate. It argues that international trade results in relational distributive duties when domestic parties engage in transactions with foreign parties that suffer from an endowed vulnerability—such as extreme poverty prevalent in the developing world. These relational duties differ from traditional distributive claims because they rely on actual economic relationships, rather than upon hypothetical social-contract scenarios. The Article establishes that in a competitive market, private parties cannot address these relational distributive duties by themselves, because doing so would put them at a competitive disadvantage, and argues that the only common-action solution to this systemic problem in the current global political setting is wealth transfers among states. The Article proceeds to suggest some policy implication of this normative analysis in the field of international tax law. It points out that the allocation of taxing rights is a form of wealth allocation that divides globalization\u27s revenue-proceeds among nations. As such, tax allocation arrangements should help correct international trade relationships that fail to meet relational distributive standards. This discussion stresses a point frequently neglected by both the tax and political philosophy literatures—that real-world attempts to promote a more just distribution of global wealth could greatly benefit from integrating distributive considerations in tax allocation arrangements

THE NEW POOR AT OUR GATES: GLOBAL JUSTICE IMPLICATIONS FOR INTERNATIONAL TRADE AND TAX LAW

The Article explains why international trade and tax arrangements should advance global wealth redistribution in a world of enhanced economic integration. Despite the indisputable importance of global poverty and inequality, contemporary political philosophy stagnates over the controversy of whether distributive justice obligations should extend beyond the political framework of the nation state. This stagnation results from the difficulty of reconciling liberal impartiality with notions of state sovereignty and accountability. The Article offers an alternative approach that bypasses the controversy of the current debate. It argues that international trade results in relational distributive duties when domestic parties engage in transactions with foreign parties that suffer from an endowed vulnerability—such as extreme poverty prevalent in the developing world. These relational duties differ from traditional distributive claims because they rely on actual economic relationships, rather than upon hypothetical social-contract scenarios. The Article establishes that in a competitive market, private parties cannot address these relational distributive duties by themselves, because doing so would put them at a competitive disadvantage, and argues that the only common-action solution to this systemic problem in the current global political setting is wealth transfers among states. The Article proceeds to suggest some policy implication of this normative analysis in the field of international tax law. It points out that the allocation of taxing rights is a form of wealth allocation that divides globalization\u27s revenue-proceeds among nations. As such, tax allocation arrangements should help correct international trade relationships that fail to meet relational distributive standards. This discussion stresses a point frequently neglected by both the tax and political philosophy literatures—that real-world attempts to promote a more just distribution of global wealth could greatly benefit from integrating distributive considerations in tax allocation arrangements

Transatlanticisms: Constitutional Asymmetry and Selective Reception of U.S. Law and Economics in the Formation of European Private Law

The recurrent claim made by judges, scholars, and lawyers shaping the debate on European private law is that there is a constitutional asymmetry in the European Union (EU). The asymmetry lies in the fact that European Community competences mostly encompass market and economic matters at the expense of social issues, while Member States have full jurisdiction over social matters but only limited jurisdiction over economic matters. Thus, the European constitutional structure leads to a market/technocratic orientation in its supranational institutions, as opposed to the social/political orientation of Member State governments. The pervasiveness of this claim allows jurists critiquing European adjudication from both the Right and the Left to systematically claim that the European Court of Justice lacks democratic legitimacy to adjudicate particular cases on European contract or torts rules. Recently, European scholars, lawyers, and judges have departed from constitutional asymmetry claims. This article demonstrates that there are several factors that have played an important role in undermining the credibility of the constitutional asymmetry claim. First, the emergence of a well-established scholarship in European private law has raised awareness among academics and lawyers regarding the complexities of the process of harmonization of private law. Second, in light of a transatlantic legal dialogue, European jurists have increasingly received law and economics from the United States in a context that has been hermeneutically rich but increasingly ideologically divided. While the Right and mostly neoliberal scholars welcomed United States law and economics, the Left rejected it and promoted a social justice agenda for the internal market. Such selective reception of U.S. legal thought contributed to the radicalization of the debate over European private law. Ultimately, with the establishment of a European private law scholarship and the emergence of new academic debates, which are increasingly ideologically divided, lawyers and scholars are frequently departing from constitutional asymmetry claims; instead, they are evaluating the consequences the European Court of Justice’s decisions on their own terms

Rethinking EU Consumer Law

In Rethinking EU Consumer Law, the authors analyse the development of EU consumer law on the basis of a number of clear themes, which are then traced through specific areas. Recurring themes include the artificiality of the EU’s consumer image, the problems created by the drive towards maximum harmonisation, and the unexpected effects EU Consumer Law has had on national law. The book argues that EU Consumer Law has the potential of enhancing the protecting of consumers throughout the EU and could offer a model for consumer law elsewhere in the world, but in order to unlock this potential, there needs to be a rethink with regard to the EU’s approach to consumer law and policy

Rethinking EU Consumer Law

In Rethinking EU Consumer Law, the authors analyse the development of EU consumer law on the basis of a number of clear themes, which are then traced through specific areas. Recurring themes include the artificiality of the EU's consumer image, the problems created by the drive towards maximum harmonisation, and the unexpected effects EU consumer law has had on national law.Peer reviewe