The ECJ Judgment on the Extensions of the ETS to Aviation: An Economist's Discontent
Few EU decisions have caused more international outcry than the extension of the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) to apply to aviation. The directive was legally challenged by US airlines before a UK court, which referred the case to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for a preliminary ruling concerning the compatibility of the directive with international law. This paper discusses the argumentation by the ECJ and the Advocate General from an economic perspective. Such an analysis is warranted in light of the fact that the contested measure is an economic regulation, the international laws that are invoked have clear economic objectives, and the ECJ judgment and the opinion by the Advocate General at least partly rely on economic concepts and mechanisms. An economic analysis also seems warranted from a legal point of view since the quality of the judgment and of the opinion presumably depend on the soundness of their economic reasoning. It is found that the argumentation by the legal authorities is highly questionable in important parts, when viewed from an economic perspective.
Restatement of the Law Third: The Foreign Relations Law of the United States. Vols. 1 and 2. St. Paul, MN: American Law Institute Publishers, 1987. Vol. 1: pp. xxviii, 641; vol. 2: pp. xxiv, 561. Index. $150.
c. Private international law (or conflict of laws). International law, which in most other countries is referred to as "public international law," is often distinguished from private international law (called conflict of laws in the United States). Private international law has been defined as law directed to resolving controversies between private persons, natural as well as juridical, primarily in domestic litigation, arising out of situations having a significant relationship to more than one state. See Restatement, Second, Conflict of Laws § 2.
Does the location of aircraft nitrogen oxide emissions affect their climate impact?
We present results from 112 one‐year global chemistry‐transport model integrations: a base case, then variants with extra aircraft nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions added to specific regions in the first month (July). The NOx stimulates ozone (O3) production and methane (CH4) destruction. Responses vary spatially: low background NOx regions are most sensitive. Integrated (100‐year time horizon) radiative forcings (IRF) are calculated. Net (O3 + CH4) IRFs for July aviation NOx are generally negative: the global average, weighted by emissions, is −1.9 mWm−2 yr (TgNO2)−1. The positive IRF associated with the short‐term O3 increase (4.1 mWm−2 yr (TgNO2)−1) is overwhelmed by the effects of the long‐term CH4 decrease. Aircraft NOx net IRFs are spatially variable, with July values over the remote Pacific approximately balancing the IRF associated with aviation CO2 emissions (28 mWm−2 yr (TgNO2)−1). The overall climate impact of global aviation is often represented by a simple multiplier for CO2 emissions. These results show that this is inappropriate.