Research On Domestic Law Regulation Of Environmental Protection During China’s Overseas Energy Investment

In recent years,with the continuous promotion of the “going out” strategy of Chinese enterprises,more and more Chinese enterprises have begun to invest abroad,among which the demand for energy investment continues to grow.Energy investment has brought economic benefits to Chinese enterprises,but environmental protection has become increasingly prominent in the process of China’s foreign energy investment,which has not only seriously affected the ecological environment of the host country,but also gradually affected the sustainable development of China’s foreign investment and the realization of national interests.As for China,a major responsible investor,economic benefits should not be put on the priority,but protecting the ecological environment of host countries in the process of overseas energy investment.Therefore,how to effectively regulate environmental protection in China’s overseas energy investment through domestic laws is of great importance.This paper starts with a brief introduction about the current domestic laws,regulations and policies in the aspect of environmental protection,combined with the analysis of part of the case involving environmental factors in the process of foreign energy investment of Chinese enterprises,three legal problems are put forward.That is,the enforcement of energy investment environmental protection legislation is weak,the environmental protection legal risk assessment of investment projects is missing,the environmental protection during energy investment is lack of oversight.Through the analysis of the above legal issues,this paper ascribed the causes to the following aspects.First of all,the legislation system of environmental protection laws have to improve.Secondly,the circumvention mechanism of environmental protection legal risk is unwieldy.Thirdly,the environmental regulation of the host country,which mainly manifests in in the low investment entry threshold set by the host country and the arbitrary adoption of environmental regulation measures.Finally,government departments lack of environmental protection legal risk assessment in the host country.Using the above analysis as a foundation,this paper proposed five improvement approaches by comparing the strategies of other countries to deal with environmental protection laws in foreign energy investment.First,introduce the principle of responsible investment,which is an important embodiment of the principles of sustainable development and has been widely practiced.The government should incorporate the relevant factors of the principles of responsible investment into environmental protection law norms from the legislative level.Second,improve the legal system of environmental protection in foreign energy investment.The specific performance is to formulate special laws on energy investment environmental protection from the three dimensions of the integration of the content of laws,supporting mechanisms and legal norms,strengthen the standards of environmental impact assessment of energy investment projects and unify the environmental protection management institutions of energy investment.Third,improve the protection mechanism of environmental protection legal risk avoidance,including the establishment of environmental risk early warning mechanism,by expanding the coverage of investment risks to optimize the investment insurance system,improve the environmental information disclosure mechanism.Fourth,the formation of joint regulation model between countries.Specifically,it can be manifested as strengthening the home government’s continuous environmental supervision of enterprise investment,improving the regulatory standards of domestic intermediaries,and optimizing the solution path of environmental disputes between enterprises and the host country.Fifth,as the home government,it can strengthen the legal risk assessment of environmental protection of foreign energy investment by standardizing the compliance review of enterprises,conducting in-depth research on environmental protection laws and regulations of the host country,and strengthening the training of environmental protection management personnel of enterprises.