The ‘Greenization’ of Chinese Bits: An Empirical Study of the Environmental Provisions in Chinese Bits and its Implications for China’s Future Bit-Making

Manjiao Chi

Journal of International Economic Law, 2015, vol. 18, issue 3, 511-542

Abstract: Incorporating environmental provisions (EPs) in International investment agreements is an important way for states to confront grave environmental challenges through the discourse of international investment law. An empirical study of the EPs incorporated in all 104 Chinese BITs in force shows that only a limited number of Chinese BITs contain EPs and that the generational and regional distribution of the EPs are imbalanced. The overall lack and low quality of the EPs make Chinese BITs as a whole insufficiently environmentally friendly. This study reveals that Chinese BITs are getting increasingly ‘green’, especially the recent decade. Mere incorporation of EPs in BITs does not necessarily make BITs ‘green’. Whether and to what extent EPs can play a constructive role in environmental protection depends on how they are applied and how the two seemingly conflicting purposes of BITs, i.e. investment protection and environmental protection, are reconciled in international investment arbitration. China has an urgent need to ‘greenize’ its BITs. Toward this end, China should, first, enhance the availability and effectiveness of EPs in its BITs; second, make consorted efforts to incorporate certain EP-related provisions in its BITs and relevant national laws; third, change its current dichotomic BIT-making strategy.

Date: 2015
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/jiel/jgv029 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:jieclw:v:18:y:2015:i:3:p:511-542.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of International Economic Law is currently edited by Kathleen Claussen, Sergio Puig and Michael Waibel

More articles in Journal of International Economic Law from Oxford University Press Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().