By Ignazio Musu, Professore emerito di Economia politica nell'Università di Venezia
Synthesis
The proposal of the Nobel Price Joseph Stiglitz sounds reasonable in principle, but difficult to implement in practice. The legal precedent referred to by the Nobel laureate is the “Shrimp-Turtle case”, when US won an appeal at WTO against Thailand in relation to a violation of the Convention on International Trade of Engendered Species (CITES). However, there are two major differences: firstly, in the case of the “Shrimp-Turtle case” both US and Thailand where members of the CITES, whereas US is not currently member of the Paris Agreement; second, in the case of the “Shrimp-Turtle case” there had been an explicit violation of CITES, whereas it is not fully clear which would be the formal violation in the case of the Trump administration (a free-riding on climate change? An increase in CO2emissions?). Overall, it would be advisable for China, Europe and US to find a collaborative solution to an important problem such as global climate change. It must also be reminded that even in the case of the “Shrimp-Turtle case” the WTO had asked for a collaborative solution to the protection of marine turtles.
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