The European Cement Association Cembureau draws the attention to the fact that the Court's analysis the said Armstrong DLW GMBH and Winnington Networks Ltd judgment may have broader implications than compensating victims of theft (Cembureau Eurobrief December 2011/January 2012 www.cembureau.be).
According to the said organisation ‘It would indeed seem possible to counter that any taking away EUAs that have been allocated would amount to an infringement of property rights even if such taking was carried out by a public authority.’
This consideration can have even greater significance against the background of the above-cited reasons for the Californian concept consisting in refusing to grant emission allowances the property right feature.
It is however noteworthy that contrary to the Californian and Australian schemes, where the regulators expressed their views on the legal nature of emission allowances directly and explicitly in the legislation creating cap-and-trade systems, under the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme the elaborations on this issue are the matter of judicial precedents. Moreover, given the multiple national legal orders of Member States the said judicial views on the – so important – issue, may diverge.
Legal nature of emission allowances as a property rights
- Category: Emissions trading
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