International settlement of trade and investment disputes over Chinese ‘silk road projects’ inside the EU

Abstract

International trade, competition, investment, social and environmental laws need new rules in order to better take into account the risks of market failures and governance failures (including climate change) in relations between neoliberal economies (e.g. in Africa, the Americas and Asia), state-capitalist economies (e.g. in China and many of its Asian BRI partner countries) and ordo-liberal economies (e.g. in Europe). The more globalisation transforms national into transnational public goods (PGs) (like transnational connectivity among BRI countries, climate stability) which no state can unilaterally protect without international law and cooperation, the more multilevel governance of transnational PGs requires multilevel protection of transnational rule of law; also the legitimacy of economic, financial and investment cooperation in the implementation of BRI projects depends on rules-based legal frameworks, impartial dispute settlement procedures, predictability and compliance of governance with the ‘rule of law’.