Study On Environmental Regulation Right Of Host Country In International Investment Agreement

With the rapid development of the global economy,the concept of economic development in various countries has gradually changed,from focusing on economic benefits at the beginning to adhering to the coordinated development of economic gains and environmental protection in order to achieve sustainable development goals.The inclusion of environmental protection provisions in international investment treaties has become an obvious trend,but the provisions on environmental protection are usually only mentioned in the preamble of the treaty or scattered in the substantive provisions.From the perspective of arbitration practice,there have been many cases in which the host country has been sued for environmental regulation measures,but the result of the award is often that the host country makes huge compensation or faces defeat.Although recently in the relevant arbitration awards,especially the ICSID has made some cases in support of the host country ’s environmental regulation measures,it is still not enough to change the current situation that the host country’s environmental regulation right is not optimistic.Obviously,it is an international law issue worthy of attention and research to clarify the environmental regulation right of the host country in the international investment agreement and provide a strong guarantee for the host country to exercise the environmental regulation right.From the perspective of the host country,this paper studies the provisions on environmental clauses and environmental regulation rights of the host country in international investment treaties,and analyzes the cases of the exercise of environmental regulation rights of the host country in the practice of international investment arbitration.It can be concluded that improving the scientific nature of the host country ’s proof,improving the relevant provisions of the state-owned investment agreement and improving the international investment arbitration procedure are the main ways to help the host country ’s environmental regulation right to get out of the predicament,so as to achieve the purpose of balancing the relationship between investment liberalization,investor interests and host country environmental interests.The paper is divided into three parts to continue to analyze and discuss this issue.The first part defines the legal attributes and exercise boundaries of environmental regulation rights,and clarifies the connotation of ’ environmental regulation rights ’.It is particularly important to pay attention to the environmental regulation right of the host country,which can not only reverse the imbalance of the international investment legal mechanism,but also adapt to the inevitable choice of the investment concept of sustainable development.It is also in line with the development trend of international investment agreements and the investment environment of host countries.The second part analyzes the relevant provisions of the text of international investment agreements and arbitration practice cases,and studies the current situation of the exercise of environmental regulation rights in the host country.Firstly,the text content of the environmental regulation right of the host country in the international investment agreement is analyzed and studied.Secondly,it studies the typical cases submitted to ICSID on the environmental regulation measures of the host country.Through the analysis of investment treaty texts and investment arbitration practices,it is found that there are three problems in the host country ’s environmental regulation evidence,which are not supported by the arbitral tribunal due to the lack of scientific evidence,the ambiguity of the relevant environmental protection provisions in the existing international investment agreements,and the arbitral tribunal ’s tendency to protect the interests of investors and ignore the host country ’s environmental regulation rights,which is not conducive to safeguarding the host country ’s environmental regulation rights;The third part,in view of the dilemma of the realization of the host country ’s environmental regulation right,puts forward the host country to provide scientific evidence for its regulatory measures,improve the content of the host country ’s environmental regulation right clause in the international investment agreement,and improve the international investment arbitration procedure.In the face of the new trend of the development of the environmental regulation right of the host country,combined with the current situation of the environmental provisions in the international investment agreements signed by China,China should also take the initiative to safeguard the environmental regulation right.