A Study On Environmental Clauses Of BRICS’ International Investment Treaties

BRICS act as emerging markets, whose extensive internal market and abundant resources have attracted numerous foreign investments. However, BRICS, as developing countries, are also seen as the “pollution haven” by developed countries sometimes. In order to enhance economic development, BRICS would ignore the internal environment protection sometimes. USA acts as a developed country, has been aware of the importance of the environment protection during the process that foreign investment coming into America. In USA model bilateral investment treaty, there is a special part that stipulates the environment protection during the investment process, which can act as a learning model of BRICS. Although some Chinese bilateral investment treaties have emphasized environmental protection recently, other BRICS countries’ bilateral investment treaties barely contained environmental clauses. As a result, in order to promote the sustainable development of the BRICS, it’s necessary to embark environmental clauses into the investment treaties.Apart from foreword and conclusion, the main content consists of four parts.The first part is about the opposition and uniform relation between international investment and environmental protection, and it includes the fundamental concepts of the international investment and the environmental protection, as well as the reflection and deficiency of this relation under internal and international law, which provide the fundamental basis of the inclusion of the environmental clauses in the following parts of the dissertation.The second part is about the general information of the environmental clauses of BRICS countries’ bilateral investment treaties, which points out the problems of the environmental clauses of the investment treaties and the future of the development of the treaties.The third part is about the general information of the environmental clauses of BRICS countries’ multilateral investment treaties, which clarifies the general information of the regional cooperation of the respective BRICS countries. It also points out the possible problem of the environmental clauses of multilateral investment treaties of BRICS and the future of the environmental clauses of the multilateral investment treaties.The forth part is about the inclusion and the construction of the environmental clauses of investment treaties, which clarifies the necessity and feasibility of the inclusion of the environmental clauses of the investment treaties. It includes the principles and models of the inclusion of the environmental clauses, and it also includes the possible components of the environmental clauses.