Introduction

Abstract

This book addresses whether and how emissions trading schemes to mitigate climate change are subject to the network of treaties comprising the international trade and investment regime, collectively referred to as international economic law. Chapter 1 introduces the broad structure and content of the book, which is divided into three principal parts. Part I, comprising Chapters 2 and 3, sets out the approach of the book, insofar as it involves initial process of treaty interpretation to determine the scope and content of relevant aspects of international economic law (including any relevant interaction with the international climate regime), followed by a subsequent process of applying the resulting interpretations to carbon units and the aspects of emissions trading schemes that affect their trade and investment in ways which attract the scrutiny of international economic law. Part II, covering Chapters 4–7, then seeks to ascertain whether carbon units are subject to international economic law by evaluating whether they qualify as ‘goods’/‘products’, ‘services’, ‘financial services’, and ‘investments’. Having determined that carbon units are, to varying extents, subject to international economic law, Part III (comprising Chapters 8 and 9) assesses the consistency of emissions trading schemes and their rules affecting carbon units with that body of law.