A Legal View on Border Tax Adjustments and Climate Change : A Latin American Perspective

This article discusses the consequences of changing taxes and tariffs as tools to move towards a low carbon economy, in the context of international efforts to minimize the effects of climate change. This article argues that under the current regime, the domestic producers of the countries subject to costly measures to avoid the negative effects of climate change, face different conditions than foreign producers from countries where such measures have not been implemented. This gives basis to the countries that have taken these international obligations to level this situation by applying carbon taxes. Thus, in order to import products from a country that does not meet the carbon tax applied in the country of import, the importer of the goods would be required to buy allowances in their country of origin to make up the difference