From confrontation to collaboration? CBDR and the EU ETS aviation dispute with developing countries

[T]he Chinese government warned it might impose punitive tariffs and the China Air Transport Association went even further and suggested that Beijing should threaten to reduce future purchases of Airbus aircraft, Russia threatened to hike overflight charges for European airlines flying to and from Asian destinations, and India threatened to levy a retaliatory tax on European airlines operating to and from India. Not too surprising, the main resistance came from the US. Last October [2011] the House of Representatives passed a resolution prohibiting US airlines from participating in the EU’s ETS, declaring that the EU action ‘directly infringes on the sovereignty of the United States’. But it’s not just the Republicans that are unhappy with the new directive. ... [US] Secretary of Transportation, Ray LaHood and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wrote to the EU commission reiterating the Obama administration’s objections on ‘legal and policy grounds’, and said the US would respond with ‘appropriate action’, They didn’t elaborate though what that action would be. Last but not least, there was a legal battle against the directive with a group of US airlines that filed a suit to the EU’s highest court, arguing that ‘forcing them to participate in the potentially costly emissions trading system infringed on national sovereignty and conflicted with existing international aviation treaties’. The court rejected this claim ... confirming ‘the validity of the directive that integrates aviation activities in the system for trading emissions quotas’. The court’s decision was final, but US carriers are looking now to take their case to other courts. Airlines for America, an