The second type of litigation is essentially transactional. The BRI has certainly launched many mega-deals, but “there are growing signs that the scope of BRI infrastructure projects has shifted from colossal to medium-sized investments.” 26 Mega-agreements and smaller transactions or projects could include two sets of core contracts: performance agreements to build infrastructure (including railways, ports and industrial parks) and the underlying contracts. Financing agreements.27 It is expected that at least one Chinese part and one part of the host country will be involved in any agreement.28 In ordinary cases, disputes arising from such contracts will be treated by the competent courts as ordinary commercial disputes using provisions of domestic or international law (including private international law and international business law). As several lawyers working in the BIS legal sector have pointed out, problems related to high-value commercial transactions could arise in the following situations: in the absence of a multilateral legal framework, an institutional organization (secretariat) and uncertainty regarding dispute settlement under the BIS, the rule of law is barely visible. However, there are promising signals on the third front. On the one hand, there is visible progress in the Closer Economic Partnership Agreement (“CEPA”) between the mainland and Hong Kong, the first free trade agreement ever concluded by mainland China and Hong Kong. The main text of CEPA was signed on 29 June 2003 and, from 2019, the Hong Kong government committed to training ombudsmen and officials under CEPA. This is the key to this discussion, as it shows that China is already busy resolving investment disputes through mediation. Bri-participating states could also use mediation in their B&R agreements with China.

The reluctance of the parties to submit their disputes to national courts has led to the preferential inclusion of arbitration clauses in international investment contracts. With regard to enforcement, of all participating members of the BIS, approximately 60 are parties to the “Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards” (the “New York Convention”). This allows for the enforcement of arbitral awards of an arbitral tribunal in a signatory state, and about 92% of the states involved in BRI projects are members of the New York Convention. As a result, international arbitration is the solution mechanism of choice for many parties with complex, expensive and high-risk projects. The question is whether international arbitration will remain so in the future, or whether the BRI will lead to the rise of a different legal system with more pronounced Chinese characteristics. China`s lawyers – A`s colleagues in another department of another ministry and their colleagues in Chinese companies – were not aware of EU law and/or did not consider the possibility of a ruling party to a G2G agreement taking such steps with real legal (or political) risk, or perhaps thought that if there was a problem, it would be treated as it would have been in China. or were so motivated that they chose to ignore all these issues, or deliberately took this opportunity to signal to the EU its determination to work directly with EU Member States and businesses. In 2014, Xi Jinping presented plans to build a new maritime trade infrastructure along the ancient Marco Polo Road – a maritime silk road that connects China, Southeast Asia, Africa and Europe. It would be a longer route that avoids the Strait of Malacca and includes petrol stations, ports, bridges, industry and infrastructure across Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean. Pakistan is considered the most important partner country in these efforts through the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project.

Lin Feng focuses on legal services and discusses Hong Kong`s role in dispute settlement for the BRI.104 His article, based on empirical statistics, argues that Hong Kong offers crucial advantages in brib-related dispute settlement, including Hong Kong`s excellent legal infrastructure as well as rhetorical support from the Chinese central government. However, Lin doesn`t take these benefits for granted. According to him, the law has its limits, and politics is probably more important than the right to decide whether Hong Kong can be a dispute settlement hub for the BRI. Lin believes that the central government`s support for Hong Kong is timid, as Hong Kong still faces competition from dispute settlement institutions in mainland China and other countries in the region. Moreover, Hong Kong`s domestic political instability undermines its appeal as a legal center. Ultimately, Lin recommends that the central government, by demonstrating its goodwill, provide more concrete support for Hong Kong`s role as a dispute settlement center. In other words, Lin expects China to adopt some sort of legal “industrial policy” to favor Hong Kong. Between A and B, C is a partner in the Almaty office of X, Y and Z LLP, a leading global law firm. He is only twenty-eight years old and was born on the day Kazakhstan declared sovereignty over its territory shortly before the dissolution of the Soviet Union. He is considered a lateral thinker on the Kazakh scene of energy and infrastructure law. He is fluent in Kazakh, Russian and English and attends exclusively the law schools of Kazakhstan.

He is a negotiator who relies on his excellent family relationships. His legal specialty is project finance, and he sees the BRI as the future – detaching itself from Russia, separating itself from the United States (of which he is personally disillusioned), China is the way forward to Kazakhstan`s prosperity and international recognition. Footnote 55 He has worked with U.S. and European companies on energy projects, but prefers to work with China – much less bureaucracy, no social and environmental risk assessments through the Equator Principles or the Global Compact, footnote 56 no EU regulation. This is not to say that it does not deal with these issues, but they can be dealt with through Kazakh laws and regulations. He is particularly proud of his involvement in the huge “Dry Port” project in Khorgos with its potential for regional transformation. Footnote 57 More than six years have passed since Chinese President Xi Jinping launched the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013.1 The BRI is a gigantic and sprawling project that literally consists of a “belt” and a “road.” .