Book Description

The article addresses border tax adjustment from the perspective of world trade law. This classical instrument of foreign trade provides a level playing field for certain goods by adjusting the indirect taxes and charges to the level of the destination country. Particular problems have arisen with environmental charges. The structure of the article reflects the development of the scientific debate on border tax adjustments. The controversy of the nineties was about the adjustment of environmental taxes, which do not charge a product as such but the resources exhausted in the process of production. The article demonstrates that those taxes are to be numbered among the adjustable indirect taxes. The current debate deals with the expenses European producers have to bear due to the European Emission Trading Scheme. It is demonstrated that those expenses are in the same way adjustable as regular environmental taxes. Thus border tax adjustment on its own becomes important as an instrument of environmental policies. This is because environmental charges can only have an effect on the exhaustion of global resources, if they do not affect global competition in favour for countries that do not pursue environmental policies. Though, in adherence to the Most Favoured Nation Clause adjustments for environmental charges can only be made schematically without considering the environmental policy or the stage of development in the country of origin. However, a justification pursuant to Art. XX GATT would allow a more flexible application of border tax adjustments.