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On the Environmental Responsibility of Chinese Enterprises for Their FDIs in Countries Within the Belt and Road Initiative

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Normative Readings of the Belt and Road Initiative

Abstract

Environmental protection is an essential aspect of the One Belt and One Road Initiative. Chinese enterprises need to pay close attention to their environmental responsibilities arising from their foreign direct investments (FDIs) in other Belt and Road countries. The determination of environmental responsibility is required to consider the sources of environmental obligations and operational logic of different dispute settlement mechanisms. Chinese enterprises face environmental obligations from four dimensions—that is, the Chinese government, host countries, international law, and other informal environmental obligations. The choice of a specific dispute settlement approach depends upon a series of considerations. When pre-judging and evaluating their environmental obligations, Chinese enterprises should, on the basis of the just and reasonable settlement of environmental disputes, clarify the environmental standards, identify the legitimacy and rationality of governmental regulations, review the objective environmental consequence(s), and determine the doctrine of liability fixation to be applied. Chinese enterprises should adjust their development principles of FDI, perform due diligence and prudence, and utilize multiple dispute resolution mechanisms.

The chapter was published in The Chinese Journal of Comparative Law (2017, Vol. 5, Issue 1) by Oxford University Press.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See Liu (2014), pp. 538–544.

  2. 2.

    The Vision and Actions on Jointly Building Road and Belt Initiative was jointly issued on 28 March 2015 by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) under authorization from the State Council of the PRC. An English version can be found on the NDRC’s website http://en.ndrc.gov.cn/newsrelease/201503/t20150330_669367.html accessed 20 October 2016.

  3. 3.

    See Wang (2016).

  4. 4.

    See Bazillier et al. (2013), pp. 1–33.

  5. 5.

    See United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (2015), p. 41.

  6. 6.

    See Zhang and Daly (2011), pp. 389–398.

  7. 7.

    See Yang et al. (2012), pp. 75–85.

  8. 8.

    See Liu and Su (2014a), pp. 37–41.

  9. 9.

    MOFCOM, National Bureau of Statistics, State Administration of Foreign Exchange (2016) and MOFCOM-PRC (2016).

  10. 10.

    See Zheng and Liu (2015), pp. 563–570.

  11. 11.

    The idea and expression about Pollution Haven are inspired from Marconi's paper “Environmental Regulation and Revealed Comparative Advantages in Europe: Is China a Pollution Haven?”

  12. 12.

    See Huang (2015), pp. 138–155.

  13. 13.

    See Liu and Su (2014b), pp. 37–41.

  14. 14.

    See Kolstad and Wiig (2012), pp. 26–34.

  15. 15.

    See Li (2014), pp. 35–38.

  16. 16.

    See Hopwood et al. (2005), pp. 38–52.

  17. 17.

    See Rogers et al. (2012), p. 46.

  18. 18.

    See Hu (2014), pp. 1–8.

  19. 19.

    See Marconi (2012), pp. 616–635.

  20. 20.

    See Kelemen (2010), pp. 335–349.

  21. 21.

    See Nanda and Pring (2012), p. 97.

  22. 22.

    See Liu (2015), pp. 108–112.

  23. 23.

    See Han (2013), pp. 103–115.

  24. 24.

    See Liu (2011), pp. 90–93.

  25. 25.

    See Brewer (1994), pp. 633–672.

  26. 26.

    See Xu (2010), pp. 143–153.

  27. 27.

    See Dong et al. (2012), pp. 216–237.

  28. 28.

    Eg, Holmes pointed out that ‘the felt necessities of the time, the prevalent moral and political theories, intuitions of public policy, avowed or unconscious, even the prejudices which judges share with their fellow-men, have had a good deal more to do than the syllogism in determining the rules by which men should be governed’. See Holmes (1991), p. 1.

  29. 29.

    See Hu (2012), pp. 656–660.

  30. 30.

    See Han (2010), pp. 22–27.

  31. 31.

    See Pothmulla (2016).

  32. 32.

    See Ghouri (2016), pp. 36–68.

  33. 33.

    See Wang (2008), pp. 3–15.

  34. 34.

    See Zeng and Zhao (2011), pp. 135–139.

  35. 35.

    See ICSID (2016).

  36. 36.

    [1999] All ER (D) 102.

  37. 37.

    ECLI:NL:RBSGR:2009:BK8616.

  38. 38.

    See Brammer et al. (2012), pp. 3–28.

  39. 39.

    See Pierson (2000), pp. 251–267 and Liebowitz and Margolis (2000), p. 981.

  40. 40.

    See Hardin (1968), pp. 1243–1248.

  41. 41.

    See Namballa (2014), pp. 181–205 and Nwapi (2014), pp. 24–43. Also see Hu and Xu (2013), pp. 21–26.

  42. 42.

    See Moore (1996), pp. 151–169.

  43. 43.

    See Hu and Xu (2013), pp. 21–26.

  44. 44.

    See Hunter and Bansal (2007), pp. 135–147.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Law School, Silk Road Institute for International and Comparative Law, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China

    Desheng Hu

  2. Law School, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China

    Jun Ou

  3. Department of Geography and Environment, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK

    Xueyue Hu

Authors
  1. Desheng Hu
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  2. Jun Ou
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  3. Xueyue Hu
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Law, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China

    Wenhua Shan

  2. Faculty of Law, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    Kimmo Nuotio

  3. Faculty of Law, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    Kangle Zhang

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Hu, D., Ou, J., Hu, X. (2018). On the Environmental Responsibility of Chinese Enterprises for Their FDIs in Countries Within the Belt and Road Initiative. In: Shan, W., Nuotio, K., Zhang, K. (eds) Normative Readings of the Belt and Road Initiative. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78018-4_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78018-4_9

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