In late September Professor Brian Lepard made multiple presentations at the 26th Annual Global Conference on Environmental Taxation (“GCET26”), which was held in Porto Alegre, Brazil.
Professor Lepard was invited to serve as a keynote panelist at the opening session of the conference, which was entitled “Climate Justice and International and Intergenerational Fairness in Climate Finance.” The session featured a video presentation by Professor Cass Sunstein of Harvard Law School. Professor Lepard offered his comments on Professor Sunstein’s talk, which included an analysis of how to determine the “social cost of carbon” (that is, the social cost in dollars of carbon emissions, which is relevant to determining how much it is worth spending to reduce those emissions or mitigate their effects).
Professor Lepard also participated in an academic panel on environmental taxation and human rights. He presented a paper entitled “Assessing Proposals for a Global Wealth Tax to Fund Green Investments: Implications of the Right to a Sustainable Environment and Fundamental Ethical Principles in International Law and World Religions.” The paper examined recent proposals for a global wealth tax on very wealthy individuals (such as a 2% annual tax on the net wealth of billionaires) to fund investments in green technologies in light of the emerging right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment. This right was recently recognized by the United Nations General Assembly and the International Court of Justice. The paper also drew upon fundamental ethical principles in international law and world religions, including those relating to the right to a healthy environment and the concept of trusteeship, to examine the advantages and disadvantages of such a tax.
Finally, Professor Lepard chaired another panel at the conference at which papers were presented on environmental sustainability in the current global context and on measuring the adverse health effects of air pollution for purposes of determining appropriate tax rates on emissions.
More information about the conference, and Professor Lepard’s participation, can be found at the conference’s website.
Professor Lepard is a recognized expert on tax law, including international tax law, comparative religious law, comparative ethics, and international human rights law. His most recent book is Reexamining Customary International Law, published by Cambridge University Press in 2017. Professor Lepard is the Harold W. Conroy Distinguished Professor of Law at the College of Law.
