Professor Nigel Bankes, Professor Liz Whitsitt (left) and former LLM student Matt Ducharme participated in a workshop on the international trade and investment law issues associated with carbon management measures at UBC on July 12 and 13. Carbon management measures refer to a range of measures that may be taken by governments to mitigate carbon emissions and facilitate the development of renewable or low carbon forms of energy (e.g., carbon taxes, border-based carbon tariffs, policies to encourage the adoption of carbon capture and storage, feed-in-tariffs, renewable energy standards, etc.) In designing these policies governments need to be aware of the trade and investment laws that may be applicable and this workshop aims to clarify the relevant issues and provide a working paper or series of working papers that may be useful for policy makers. See Matt's ABlawg post on “The European Fuel Quality Directive: Will It Stay or Will it Go?” Nigel discusses some of the investment law issues in a blog entitled "Low carbon energy policies: vested rights, legitimate expectations and differential treatment in domestic and international law", available here. The workshop, hosted by Professor Shi-Ling Hsu of UBC, is supported by a grant from Carbon Management Canada to a group of researchers including Hsu, Bankes and Professor Shaun Fluker.
University of Calgary
Faculty of Law
