One Belt One Road – European Chinese Law Research Hub

Green Finance as an Institutional Mechanism to Direct the BRI towards Sustainability

9. October 2022

A new paper by Meihui Zhang, Chi Zhang, Fenghua Li and Ziyu Liu

A Tapanuli orangutan female in the North Sumatran Province, Indonesia. A BRI-funded hydropower dam has been under attack for demolishing this endangered species’ habitat. Photo by Tim Laman.

The construction projects realized through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) globally have come under attack for causing severe damage to the environment. China’s regulators have responded by issuing green finance rules. In our article we ask: Is the current framework of laws and regulations really a strong guarantee for more sustainable BRI investment projects?

In 2013, President Xi announced the BRI, an investment program to construct infrastructure and power plants in countries that join the initiative, during an official visit to Kazakhstan. At the present time, the BRI extends to more than 140 countries on three continents. Constructing mega projects requires considerable investments, an overwhelming majority of which are made by Chinese enterprises under the official policy of ‘going out’ 企业走出去. The projects are mainly financed by loans from Chinese state-owned and state-controlled banks.

While the BRI is an ambitious plan (and is sometimes compared to the Marshall Plan after the Second World War), its prospects are ostensibly dimmed in view of a number of challenges. Since the Covid-19 pandemic, China’s banks have allocated more resources to lending in the domestic market. For a resilient recovery, the halted BRI projects require more investments, however, it is unclear where such funding will come from. It appears that China’s banks are unlikely to be able to continue to provide for foreign loans on such a large scale.

The BRI faces an additional (and perhaps a more profound) challenge: Building roads and powerplants, if not well-managed, damages local environments. Several news outlets have already reported how the mega projects threaten environmental sustainability. For example, approximate 800 Tapanuli orangutans lost their treetop home in Indonesia’s Batang Toru rainforest because of the construction of a hydropower project partly financed by the Bank of China. If China and countries along the BRI fail to address these threats to the environment, the BRI cannot achieve the long-term sustainability.

One means to increase the sustainability of BRI investment projects are green finance tools. Banks can raise funds by issuance of ‘BRI theme’ green bonds and lend the proceeds to green projects in BRI host countries. Thus, at least in theory, both the constraint of funding as well as the concern over environmental sustainability can be alleviated. Utilising green finance tools, however, is only possible if domestic and international ESG investors are convinced that the ‘green projects’ are truly environmentally friendly. This requires, among others, banking and securities offerings regulations to incorporate ‘green finance’ rules so that greenwashing problems are avoided. Furthermore, the issuer of the green bond must adhere to a reputable ‘green bond standard’, and mandate that issuers of green bonds disclose information concerning the use of bond proceeds and label the bond with a third-party certification.

China’s regulatory authorities have recently issued related rules. Our in-depth examination of these rules in our recent research paper, we discovered that despite significant achievements, there remain a number of deficiencies in China’s green finance regulations. These deficiencies include a lack of legally binding force of applicable green overseas lending guidelines, insufficient environmental disclosure requirements, and fragmented rules regarding the use of green bond proceeds. Realising the deficiencies entrenched in China’s green finance regulations, the paper presents a number of policy recommendations. This study contributes to future research in the area of green finance and the BRI, particularly in terms of Chinese law and regulations.

Our paper Green Finance as an Institutional Mechanism to Direct the Belt and Road Initiative towards Sustainability: The Case of China is published in Sustainability and can be accessed here.

Meihui Zhang is a lecturer in financial law at School of Law, Tianjin University of Finance and Economics. Prior to joining TUFE, she was a lecturer (2016‐2022) at the School of Finance, Nankai University. She holds a PhD in law from University of Glasgow, an LLM and LLB degree from Renmin University of China.

Chi Zhang is a lecturer in commercial law at School of Law, University of Glasgow. He holds a PhD in law from University of Glasgow, and MPhil in Law and LLB from Tsinghua University. He is a member of the Society of Law Scholars (UK).

Fenghua Li is an associate professor at Law School, University of International Business and Economics. He received a first PhD from China University of Political Science and Law, and a second PhD from University of Glasgow. He is the Secretary-Gernaral of the UIBE Centre for BRI Legal Study affiliated to the China Law Society.

Ziyu Liu is a lecturer at Department of International Law, China Foreign Affairs University. She received her LLB degree from Renmin University of China, LLM degree from National University of Singapore, and PhD degree from University of Hong Kong.

China’s Treaty Policy and Practice in International Investment Law and Arbitration

20. April 2022

A review by Xu Qian of G. Matteo Vaccaro-Incisa’s new book

^{Photo by lyng883 is marked with CC BY 2.0.}

China’s success in attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) in the past decades is unprecedented. It is currently the second largest FDI recipient in the world, which is a success partially due to China’s efforts to enter into international investment instruments, such as BITs and free trade agreements (FTAs). Since its first bilateral investment treaty (BIT) with Sweden in 1982, China has signed BITs with more than 130 countries. In addition, Chinese investment treaties have typically provided international forums for settling investment disputes such as the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). Being both a capital importing and a capital exporting nation, China is in a need to maintain a balance of such dual role through its international investment instruments, attracting inward FDI and, at the same time, protecting outward FDI.

In the early stage, China’s BITs mainly follow the template as established by western countries, yet with the rapid economic growth, China is more willing to set up its own discourse. The Belt and Road Initiative, and the separate negotiations with the EU and US regardless their ultimate fate reveal China’s proactive approach to participate in the global economic governance. China’s dual role regarding FDI and its investment strategies is efficiently transforming its role as a reliable rule-maker in the global economy. China has also reviewed its BIT policy and practices owning to the experience in dealing with the cases filed by foreign investors against China. Against this background, Dr. Vaccaro-Incisa’s book offers the most comprehensive and detailed account of China’s treaty policy and practice in international investment law and arbitration published to date.

Through his comparative and analytical study, this book reviews the changing role of China in international investment. It provides a detailed analysis of the contents of all of China’s agreements from 1982 to 2015 by considering the role of investment treaties in China’s economic policy. This book also provides a summary of key literature in discussing China’ BITs and their characteristics, application and pitfalls. By interpreting the key provisions of the BITs and discussing the evolution and features of these investment treaties, this book successfully identifies trends in major areas of Chinese investment treaty making. It produces objective assessment of investment arbitration of China’s treaty practice. This book without doubt represents a significant accomplishment in clearly laying out the content and systemically examining China’s treaty making practices in a broader context. Overall, this book represents not only a valuable and necessary addition to the literature but also a point of departure that invites further research in China’s practice in this area.

G. Matteo Vaccaro-Incisa’s monograph China’s Treaty Policy and Practice in International Investment Law and Arbitration – A Comparative and Analytical Study is published with Brill.

Dr. Xu QIAN is Associate Professor & “Hundred Talents Program Fellow” at Zhejiang University (ZJU), School of Law and Affiliated Expert, Asia Pacific FDI Network (APFN). She is also an active member of Asia Society of International Law, and Academic Forum on Investor-state Dispute Settlement. She specialises in transnational law and researches in a diverse range of cutting-edge cross-border issues, including water and sanitation law, Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), International Economic Law and Public International Law. She may be contacted via email at: qianxuxu [at] zju.edu.cn.

Lawyers and the Belt and Road Initiative

5. November 2021

A new paper by Lawrence J. Liu

^{Shanghai Pudong where many of the lawyers supporting the BRI go to work}

I emerged from the taxi on a Sunday afternoon and peered up at the skyscrapers that dominate Beijing’s Guomao district. After finding the appropriate gaolou and taking the elevator up to the law firm’s upper floors, one of Mr. Wang’s* associates came out to greet me. Although the offices were largely empty, Mr. Wang’s corner was bustling with activity. Mr. Wang and I spoke for about half an hour before he asked if I would like to continue our conversation over lunch. I agreed, Mr. Wang grabbed a bottle of wine from his fridge, and we went out to eat.

During lunch, we continued our discussion of Mr. Wang’s cross-border legal experiences. He earned his initial degrees from Chinese universities before studying abroad and earning an additional set of European credentials. He returned to China to work at a domestic law firm, where he now specializes in representing Chinese mining companies pursuing projects in Africa. In addition to taking pride in his foreign training, in his foreign-language skills, and in the one foreign-born non-Chinese associate on his team, Mr. Wang is also very proud of China’s outbound development efforts. He criticized the negative portrayals of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) outside of China, noted that “Western” countries were hypocritical for celebrating their own international work while casting aspersions on China’s, and he applauded Chinese companies’ willingness to take risks that foreign companies no longer take.

Interest abounds in whether China’s outbound ambitions are changing the rules of the international legal order. Many have adopted an international-relations lens that focuses on state-to-state dynamics. This interest in the forest instead of the trees is not incorrect, but it shifts attention away from the sources of the norms that would underlie any potential new order—such as the Chinese lawyers who are intimately involved in the day-to-day work of initiatives like the BRI. Interviews with Mr. Wang and others reflect the complex role played by Chinese lawyers that sit at the boundary of two competing scripts. From one perspective, many are “Western”-trained and provide cross-border legal services developed and spread by “Western” states. From another, lawyers like Mr. Wang are encouraged by the Chinese government to serve on the frontlines of its international development efforts.

In previous work, I have emphasized the need for scholars to recognize variation within China’s legal profession and to examine the ways in which the state may rely on “state-adjacent” lawyers as citizen-partners in governance. “The Rules of the (Belt and) Road: How Lawyers Participate in China’s Outbound Investment and Infrastructure Initiatives” takes up these calls by focusing on another slice of the legal profession that is involved in state-led policy efforts: the 84 Chinese lawyers who have been identified by the All China Lawyers Association (ACLA) as “BRI and Cross-Border Legal Experts.” My research suggests that the BRI and Cross-Border Legal Expert is a highly educated male with extensive foreign experiences as well as strong ties to the state and the Chinese Communist Party.

To obtain a deeper understanding of these lawyers’ views and work, I also interviewed eleven experts or their associates in Beijing and Shanghai. I document how BRI and Cross-Border Legal Experts draw on knowledge buckets that highlight their familiarity with transnational best practices. At the same time, these Experts recognize and help shape the political context surrounding their work. Though most BRI and Cross-Border Legal Experts naturally became involved in BRI projects as their clients’ sights shifted abroad, many (like Mr. Wang) want to see the BRI succeed, even as they also recognize the need for continued policy reforms.

As China continues its global rise, will Chinese lawyers’ stance vis-à-vis the status quo become more subversive than complementary? Perhaps, though I would argue that it is still too early to say. Ongoing work should continue to monitor these dynamics by adopting a similar bottom-up approach. If and when China’s BRI lawyers begin to prioritize Chinese state scripts over existing norms of transnational practice, this should worry those who are committed to the “Western”-led international order. Until then, we should remain attentive to the words and actions of on-the-ground actors like China’s BRI and Cross-Border Legal Experts, those that make state policy a reality.

Find Lawrence Liu‘s paper here.

Lawrence J. Liu is a PhD student in the Jurisprudence and Social Policy Program at Berkeley Law as well as a JD candidate at Yale Law School. His research interests are in administrative law and regulatory politics, law and globalization, the legal profession, and state-society relations, with a focus on contemporary China.

* Mr. Wang is a pseudonym for one of my interviewees in Beijing.

Archipelagos of Chinese Law

25. June 2021

A new paper by Matthew Erie

On May 20, 2021, the Sri Lankan government passed the controversial Colombo Port City Economic Zone Bill (Port City Bill), creating the country’s first special economic zone (SEZ) for services-oriented industries. Parliament’s passing of the bill occurred days after the Supreme Court ruled that several provisions of the Port City Bill were unconstitutional, requiring amendments. The heart of the controversy was the creation of a commission of unelected members who would have broad powers over the SEZ, an innovation that contravened the authority of regulators and, as it has been argued, violated Sri Lankan sovereignty as enshrined in its constitution. More specifically, the SEZ is funded and developed by a subsidiary of China Communications Construction Company, which invested $1.4 billion to construct the SEZ in exchange for a 99-year lease from the Sri Lankan government. As a result of this controversy, the Port City Bill was amended such that five of the seven commission members have to be Sri Lankan.

Unaddressed by the Supreme Court, however, was a seemingly more innocuous but nonetheless potentially far-reaching problem: the bill’s dispute resolution provisions. The Port City Bill proposed to establish an International Commercial Dispute Resolution Centre (ICDRC) that uses arbitration to settle disputes within the SEZ, effectively ousting the jurisdiction of Sri Lankan courts. This ouster is contentious given that the courts have, in the past, held that legislation cannot oust its jurisdiction. Still, the ICDRC survived judicial scrutiny and was passed into law.

The Port City Bill and the ICDRC, in particular, exemplify a particular logic of outbound Chinese capital, one that, in my recent article based on three years of fieldwork and nearly 150 interviews, I summarize as “Chinese law and development” (CLD). Whereas previous capital-exporting countries, and in particular, the U.S., have sought to reform the legal system of host states, often in line with their own experience of law, Chinese parties are mostly not interested in engaging in the legal reform of host states. Rather, they have shown a greater interest in creating institutions of transnational law, including international arbitration centers—both within the People’s Republic of China and outside its territory—that can avoid Chinese companies from having to litigate in host state courts.

Opening Ceremony Colombo Port City Project (Public Ownership)

Taking a step back, “law and development” most generically refers to the relationship between law and economic development in what used to be called the “Third World,” and is particularly understood as technical legal development assistance as provided by donor states to host ones. The career of David Trubek at the University of Wisconsin Law School is most commonly associated with the U.S. experience of law and development, one that has undergone a series of waves. Chinese law and development (CLD) is different from Trubek’s view of the notion. For the most part, the Chinese government does not send out legal technicians to advise foreign states on how to design legal institutions or draft legislation, efforts under-girded by assumptions about the capacity of law to stimulate economic growth.

Instead of popular accounts that envision China as hegemonic, and roughly analogous to previous economic superpowers, China is emerging into the world economy during a period of widespread anxiety about Chinese influence, anxiety that takes the form of investment screening, trade tariffs, and immigration blockades. Further, China’s own experience with legal reform shows how law offered one set of norms, among others (e.g., administrative directives, dictates of the Chinese Communist Party, political campaigns, etc.) that facilitated (and sometimes impeded) economic experimentation. CLD thus addresses how the Chinese government and Chinese enterprises protect their assets, investments, and personnel in challenging legal and regulatory environments. To do so, CLD unzips the toolkit of such Chinese parties to demonstrate the plurality of means by which they secure their commercial and also geo-economic interests.

The co-creation of what elsewhere I have called “exceptional zones” such as SEZs with their own dispute resolution mechanisms that feature rules different from those of the host jurisdiction is one such method. In addition to Sri Lanka, there are other extraterritorial examples, such as that of the China-Africa Joint Arbitration Centre. These jurisdictional archipelagos foster transnational law by allowing parties to opt out of the national law of host states and choose alternative law, which theoretically could be Chinese law. Hence, issues of governing law in contracts that are the basis of disputes, as well as language of arbitration, nationality of arbitrators, and related procedural issues, loom large as these new legal hubs start to accept cases. While these archipelagos are not unique to Chinese outbound capital, Chinese parties seem to be particularly focused on their promotion. More broadly, CLD raises important questions concerning how exceptional zones impact legal development and access to justice in emerging economies.

Matthew Erie’s paper ‘Chinese Law and Development’ was published in the Harvard International Law Journal earlier this year and is available for free here.

Matthew S. Erie is an Associate Professor, Member of the Law Faculty, and Associate Research Fellow at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies at the University of Oxford. He is also the Principal Investigator of the “China, Law and Development” project (grant agreement No 803763), based at the University of Oxford. You can follow him on Twitter @MatthewErie or reach out to him at matthew.erie(at)law.ox.ac.uk.

China’s Law and Development: The Case of the China International Commercial Court

6. June 2021

A new paper by Weixia Gu

*Appointment of the First Batch of CICC International Commercial Experts* *Committee*

In June 2018, the China International Commercial Court (CICC) was established within China’s Supreme People’s Court. It is a top-down capacity-building effort in establishing dispute resolution infrastructure and represents the ambition to create a lex mercatoria in the context of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This blogpost highlights some salient features of the CICC and sheds light on its significance in China’s Law and Development.

First, CICC installed an International Commercial Experts Committee (ICEC) to make up for the lack of non-Mainland Chinese judges among its personnel. It draws on experts from both civil law and common law jurisdictions with diverse backgrounds (Eastern, Western and African legal culture). Members of the ICEC will provide foreign legal expertise to engage in the CICC mediation work, the outcome of which could be turned into a CICC judgement equivalent to “semi adjudication.” The ICEC has two main functions: first, presiding over mediation proceedings of international commercial cases which can be converted into a CICC judgement; second, providing advisory opinions on proof of foreign law and on international treaties, international commercial rules. The ICEC is argued as emblematic of the “paradigm shift” of the Beijing Consensus which traditionally emphasises soft law in international legal ordering such as what has happened in the Belt and Road context. Scholars have argued about a rising new Chinese economic legal order that is characterized by China’s decentralized mode of trade governance through a pragmatic, incremental development policy grounded in soft law and norm-based networks (Shaffer & Gao 2020). This is shown in China’s approach toward the BRI (yidaiyilu 一带一路) as China largely relies on memoranda of understanding and soft law agreements. There is no stringent cross-border legal framework or rigid regulatory structure in China’s approach toward the BRI. The advent of the ICEC however points to a new focus on institution-building which is somewhat a departure of the previous soft-law approach. Apart from that, the ICEC also showcases a breakthrough in the Chinese legal system in light of the existing statutory impediments found in, for example, China’s Judges Law, which allows only Mainland Chinese nationals to sit on the Chinese judicial benches. It reflects a more proactive, experimental, and innovative mentality adopted by the Chinese government and judiciary in seeking to incorporate overseas judicial expertise so as to compete in the global dispute resolution market.

The CICC signifies China’s major step towards a dual-track model which places equal emphasis on both soft-law instruments and hard-law capacity-building of legal infrastructure. Second, the CICC brands itself as a “one-stop shop” for diversified dispute resolution, incorporating alternative dispute resolutions (ADRs) into conventional litigation. Under this vision, international commercial litigation, arbitration and mediation are blended and integrated to facilitate the resolution of international commercial disputes brought before the CICC. The CICC also links with China’s five most market-driven arbitration institutions – China International Economic and Trade Arbitration (CIETAC), Beijing Arbitration Commission (BAC), Shenzhen Court of International Arbitration (SCIA), Shanghai International Arbitration Centre (SHIAC), China Maritime Arbitration Commission (CMAC), and two leading commercial mediation institutions – China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) Mediation Center and Shanghai Commercial Mediation Centre (SCMC). If disputing parties have reached a mediation settlement agreement before the CCPIT Mediation Center or SCMC, the CICC may also make a CICC judgment based on the mediation agreement if it is requested by the parties. This conversion of the institutional mediation settlement agreement into a CICC judgment is an unprecedented arrangement, evidencing the experimental and law-positive nature of China’s approach to the BRI and the new Beijing Consensus.

From the Law and Development perspective, the establishment of the CICC exemplifies a turning point in the Beijing Consensus to move away from the heavy reliance on norm-based instruments in international legal ordering.

Third, the CICC has a guaranteed caseload. Structurally, the CICC is within the hierarchy of the Chinese domestic judiciary. It forms part of China’s Supreme People’s Court of which both the first CICC in Shenzhen and the second CICC in Xi’an are permanent branches. Flowing from this structure, it is ensured that the CICC continuously has a high caseload as the Supreme People’s Court in Beijing directly refers cases to them. In fact, the case flow under the CICC Provisions includes “other international commercial cases that the Supreme People’s Court considers appropriate to be tried by the CICC.” (Provisions of the Supreme People’s Court on Several Issues Regarding the Establishment of the International Commercial Court, Article 2(5), English here). Comparative studies show that the feature of “rooting” the international commercial courts within the domestic judicial system is similarly found in other jurisdictions, such as the Singapore International Commercial Court and the Chamber for International Commercial Disputes of the Frankfurt Regional Court in Germany.

The establishment of the CICC arguably represents a paradigm shift of the “Beijing Consensus”, which traditionally placed emphasis on informal alternatives to law (i.e. a soft-law and norm-based approach). The CICC signifies China’s major step towards a dual-track model which places equal emphasis on both soft-law instruments and hard-law capacity-building of legal infrastructure. From the Law and Development perspective, the establishment of the CICC exemplifies a turning point in the Beijing Consensus to move away from the heavy reliance on norm-based instruments in international legal ordering (such as Memorandum of Understandings, Memorandum of Agreements, Joint Statements etc. involved in the BRI) to hard-law institutional infrastructure capacity-building.

Finally, the CICC benefits from China’s accession to the Hague Convention of 30 June 2005 on Choice of Court Agreements (Choice of Court Convention) (the Hague Convention) which was signed in September 2017. Recognition and enforcement of the judgments rendered by the CICC can be facilitated via the Hague Convention.

For details, please find Weixia Gu’s forthcoming article regarding the CICC and Law and Development Study at Harvard International Law Journal here. Please also find her recent monograph, Dispute Resolution in China: Litigation, Arbitration, Mediation and Their Interactions published by Routledge in 2021 here.

Weixia Gu is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Hong Kong and immediate past Co-Chair of the American Society of International Law (ASIL) Asia-Pacific Interest Group. Her research focuses on arbitration, dispute resolution, private international law and cross-border legal issues. Her scholarship is published by leading comparative and international law journals and cited by leading judiciaries in the world. She is the recipient of University of Hong Kong’s Outstanding Young Researcher Award and three times the awardee of China Society of Private International Law Best Research Output Prize. Her recent books include The Developing World of Arbitration (Hart, 2018); Dispute Resolution in China (Routledge, 2021); Multi-tiered Approaches to the Resolution of International Disputes (CUP, 2021). Contact her at guweixia@hku.hk.

Chinese influence – New perspectives on international arbitration regimes

3. January 2021

A new paper by Ulla Liukkunen

Cross-border dispute resolution is changing as a part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) development. With the BRI, Chinese interest in international commercial arbitration has gained a new dimension as BRI promotes the expansion of Chinese dispute resolution institutions and their international competitiveness. Ulla Liukkunen finds that these developments challenge the current narrative of international arbitration, underlining the connection between the legal regime of arbitration and endeavours by the state. In her recent paper (PDF), she explores private international law as a framework for discussion of noteworthy characteristics of the Chinese legal system and legal culture that are present in international commercial arbitration.

The People’s Republic of China has made initiatives to develop a joint dispute resolution circle for BRI countries so that there would be an area in the BRI sphere which offers effective and foreseeable dispute resolution based on jurisdictions close to the disputing parties. In 2016, upon an order by the State Council, Shanghai pressed forward with the creation of an international commercial arbitration system which has since then developed rapidly: The Shanghai International Arbitration Centre has witnessed an increase in the number of cases, and has launched a series of initiatives to promote the development of arbitration. In 2018, the CCP’s Central Committee and the State Council issued an Opinion calling the Supreme People’s Court to set up international commercial courts, to take the lead in setting up a committee of international commercial experts, and to support a BRI-related international commercial dispute resolution mechanism. The aim is that the BRI dispute resolution mechanism would form a convenient, speedy and low-cost “one-stop” dispute resolution centre to provide high-quality and efficient legal services for parties involved in BRI construction.

In the theory of international commercial arbitration, elaboration of a doctrine based on the claimed autonomous nature of international arbitration exists, resting on views of self-standing transnational legal standards that distance arbitration from state-bound laws as well as a state-bound setting. The growing role of China in international arbitration ‒ and the state interest embedded therein ‒ challenges this picture which has been built within international arbitration doctrine and which has resulted in loosening the scene of the role of state law in arbitration.

A rethink of comparative methodology is proposed in order to promote an understanding of Chinese law in the arbitration process. This article argues for adopting micro-macro comparison as a methodological approach in arbitration. Micro-macro comparison as a process penetrates the decision-making of arbitrators, also governing the conflict-of-law dimension.

Moreover, considerations of the Chinese private international law and arbitration regime speak for a broader comparative research perspective towards international commercial arbitration. In the international commercial arbitration frame under scrutiny, we can see the conception of party autonomy placed in a Chinese context where the state is shaping the still relatively young private international law frame for exercise of that freedom and certain institutional structures are advocated where party autonomy is placed. Chinese development underlines the connection between the legal regime of arbitration and endeavours by the state, thereby requiring assessment of party autonomy from the perspective of the regulatory framework of private international law that expresses the complex dichotomy between private and public interests.

The article “Chinese context and complexities — comparative law and private international law facing new normativities in international commercial arbitration” is among the first in the new open access publication Ius Comparatum launched by the International Academy of Comparative Law.

Professor Liukkunen examines international commercial arbitration from the perspective of Chinese developments, noting that, in global terms, the organization of cross-border dispute resolution is changing as a part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) development. With the BRI, Chinese interest in international commercial arbitration has gained a new dimension as BRI promotes the expansion of Chinese dispute resolution institutions and their international competitiveness.

Economic Development through Migration: Facilitating Skilled Migration to China through the Belt and Road Initiative

5. November 2020

A new paper by Eva Lena Richter

Contributing to the “China, Law and Development” research project, Eva Lena Richter‘s latest research observes Chinese and multilateral efforts to facilitate skilled migration from Belt and Road Initiative countries to China. Since the launch of the Initiative, strengthening people-to-people ties is part of its cooperation priorities. This cooperation is established in different ways, including student and academic exchanges, research cooperation, joint vocational training, and tourism. The Chinese government is the major guiding force of the Initiative and hence also shapes how these exchanges, or rather forms of migration, develop between China and Belt and Road Initiative-countries.

This paper (a free draft version here) looks at student, academic, and personnel mobility from Belt and Road Initiative countries to China and forms of migration and national Chinese legislation as well as efforts in bilateral and multilateral cooperation to facilitate them. Is the promise of mutually beneficial development tangible in these efforts? What role does China occupy in shaping the way migration develops along the Belt and Road Initiative? What role does Chinese skilled immigration legislation play? These are some of the questions this paper addresses.

The findings suggest that new skilled Chinese migration legislation, geared towards foreigners with tertiary education, paired with Belt and Road Initiative cooperation efforts and visa facilitation, is opening comparatively more opportunities for skilled nationals of BRI countries. BRI nationals are more often exempt from visas and have access to targeted talent attraction and retention programs. Nevertheless, up to now, these efforts have been mainly undertaken by the Chinese government, and skilled Belt and Road Initiative nationals are not being encouraged to migrate to China under bilateral employment agreements. For now, the bulk of China’s skilled immigrants does not come from Belt and Road Initiative countries.

Eva Lena Richter is a PhD Candidate at Cologne University’s Chair for Chinese Legal Culture and a Research Associate with the “China, Law and Development”-project, University of Oxford. She focusses on China’s legal system for skilled labour migration and efforts to attract and retain skilled foreigners in China. Get in touch with her on Linkedin.

Rule Setters for Belt and Road? China’s New International Commercial Courts

20. March 2020

In June 2018, China opened two International Commercial Courts (CICC) in Shenzhen and Xi’an, which were widely received by the international public in terms of challenging the dominance of so far mainly western-led institutions for the resolution of commercial disputes. These courts were heralded by Chinese judicial officials as innovative hubs for flexible dispute resolution that would provide crucial services needed for the further development of the BRI. Even though the unique structure of these courts as one-forum-stops for commercial dispute resolution may be considered a deviceful tool for resolving BRI disputes, their role as agents in China’s quest for a heightened influence in shaping the international economic legal order may globally be of even more significance. The Supreme People’s Court as responsible agency for the CICCs issued a normative document late in December 2019 outlining the purpose of these courts as inter alia tools for promoting China’s rising position in the international legal discourse. The CICC’s adjudicative work should therefore be measured not only from the perspective of effective and fair dispute resolution for BRI conflicts but also as part of China’s agenda in using the BRI’s entangled legalities across different jurisdictions to shape legal developments outside China.

Daniel Sprick and Nora Sausmikat have investigated the courts and their impact in terms of their influence on the global order and presented their study to the EU Parliament. You can find it here.

Tag: One Belt One Road