Content Join OGEMID
 
  • Linkedin
  • Twitter
  • Rss

Transnational Dispute Management

Skip navigation

Transnational Dispute Management

The network for international arbitration, mediation and ADR, international investment law and Transnational Dispute Management

Join OGEMID

Transnational Dispute Management

The network for international arbitration, mediation and ADR, international investment law and Transnational Dispute Management

  • Sign in
  • Subscribe
  • Home
  • Sign in
  • About About
    1. Home
    2. About
    3. About TDM
    4. About TDM
    5. Founding Editor T.W. Wälde
    6. T.W. Wälde
    7. Editorial team
    8. Editorial team
    9. Contributing Authors
    10. Contributing Authors
    11. Subscriptions
    12. Subscriptions
  • Journal Journal
    1. Home
    2. Journal
    3. Browse Issues
    4. Browse
    5. Articles by Category
    6. By Category
    7. Articles by Author
    8. By Author
    9. Advance publication
    10. Advance publication
    11. Specials
    12. Specials
    13. Search
    14. Search
    15. Book reviews
    16. Reviews
  • Legal & Regulatory docs. L & r docs
    1. Home
    2. Legal & Regulatory docs.
    3. L&R by Country
    4. L&R by Country
    5. L&R by Category
    6. L&R by Category
    7. L&R recent additions
    8. L&R recent additions
    9. Search
    10. Search
  • Audiovisual library AV library
    1. Home
    2. Audiovisual library
    3. Audiovisual Library
    4. Audiovisual Library
    5. TDM/OGEMID Interviews
    6. TDM/OGEMID Interviews
    7. Conference presentations
    8. Conference presentations
  • OGEMID OGEMID
    1. Home
    2. OGEMID
    3. About OGEMID
    4. About OGEMID
    5. Suggest a topic
    6. Suggest a topic
    7. Guest programme
    8. Guest programme
    9. Seminar programme
    10. Seminar programme
    11. Browse archive
    12. Browse archive
    13. Search
    14. Search
    15. Join
    16. Join
  • News & Events Events
    1. Home
    2. News & Events
    3. News
    4. News
    5. Events
    6. Events
  • Subscribe
Home > News & Events > News > TDM Call for Papers: Special issue on "China's One Belt, One Road: Economic Changes, Power Shifts and Prospects / Consequences for the World of Arbitration"

TDM Call for Papers: Special issue on "China's One Belt, One Road: Economic Changes, Power Shifts and Prospects / Consequences for the World of Arbitration"

27 January 2017

Update: The TDM 3 (2017): Special Issue on China's One Belt, One Road (OBOR) has been published in October 2017. Table of contents here https://www.transnational-dispute-management.com/journal-browse-issues-toc.asp?key=73

Prof. Julien Chaisse, Prof. Manjiao Chi, Dr. Jędrzej Górski, Dr. Manzoor Ahmad, and Ms. Teresa Cheng will be editing a Special Issue of Transnational Dispute Management (TDM, ISSN 1875-4120, www.transnational-dispute-management.com) on the legal aspects of the One Belt One Road initiative ('OBOR').

The One Belt One Road initiative has been the Chinese development strategy aiming at the economic integration of Eurasia and the growth of China's Western Provinces, largely through infrastructural and transportation projects. OBOR's core idea has been to revive ancient land-trade routes in the framework of the Silk Road Economic Belt project ('SREB') supported by the Twenty-first Century Maritime Silk Road ('21MSR') as proposed by Xi Jinping in Autumn 2013 first in Kazakhstan about the SREB, and subsequently in Indonesia with regard to the 21MSR. In addition, the OBOR/SREB also includes regional platforms of co-operation, particularly the '16+1 Group' gathering China and Central and Eastern European countries which was established in April 2012 in Warsaw, that is over a year ahead of the announcement of the OBOR.

The OBOR has been pictured as a mostly geopolitical project with potentially far-reaching economic ramifications. Thus, the OBOR has so far attracted massive attention from commentators and scholars focusing on politics, international relations and economics. However, for the time being, the OBOR is still at the very initial phase of realisation and its success essentially depends on the formation of efficient institutional and regulatory environment along OBOR's trade routes.

The co-editors invite you to explore the legal dimensions of the controversy surrounding the OBOR by contributing to this special edition with unpublished or previously published articles, conference papers, research papers and case studies addressing the OBOR and corresponding issues.

For example, the following topics raise interesting points for discussion:

  • Institutional Framework of the OBOR.
    • What are the potential issues with the legal form/structure, ownership, capitalisation, decision-making process, and governance of China-led institutions meant to finance OBOR-related projects, including the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank ('AIIB'), the New Development Bank ('NDB'), the New Silk Road Fund ('NSRF'), and the China Investment Corporation ('CIC')?
    • Challenges to the OBOR transit routes arising out of inter-regional and international rivalries
    • How do these institutions compare with the solutions commonly accepted in the existing system of development aid (under the World Bank's leadership) and by sovereign wealth funds of other countries?
    • Where do Chinese state-owned commercial banks stand in this landscape?
    • What are the distinctive features (compared with Western development-aid institutions), if any, of conditions of financing by OBOR-related institutions, such as governing law and terms and conditions of loans or procurement-rules related to financed projects?
    • How is sustainability integrated into operations of such institutions including labour right, social rights, protection against expropriations, protection of indigenous peoples. How does it compare with existing development aid institutions?
    • Development on a specific AIIB framework/institution to handle investment disputes.
    • What are the potential issues with the settlement of disputes, including disputes between:
      • stakeholders in financing institutions,
      • financing institutions and borrowers,
      • foreign contractors/suppliers/service-providers and borrower's procuring agencies?
  • Expansion of public and private investment in Eurasia.
    • Current developments/negotiations on bilateral investment treaties (BITs) and Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs) investment chapters between China and countries situated along OBOR routes.
    • Role of the protection of state-owned enterprise as well as sovereign wealth funds in such negotiations.
    • Current state of market access for foreign investment in transportation infrastructure (railways, toll roads, intermodal terminals, etc.) along the OBOR routes, and the prospects for liberalisation.
    • Will Chinese investors/multinationals be trendsetters or adjust to local conditions of terms of corporate governance, labour standards, environmental protection and generally in terms sustainability?
    • Review of pending and decided investor-state disputes and prospects for investor-state arbitration.
  • Legal Challenges to trade along the OBOR routes.
    • What are current problems of trade facilitation and reduction of non-tariff-barriers to trade along the OBOR routes, such as:
      • reduction of custom clearance procedures (for example the case of Framework Agreement on Cooperation in Facilitating Customs Clearance Among the Chinese, Hungarian, Serbian and Macedonian Customs in Budapest concluded in 2016),
      • prospects for the liberalisation of the provision of land-transportation-services within EEA, between Russia/EEA and the EU, or between Russia/EEA and China.
      • taxation of transportation services along OBOR routes.
    • How can the new transit regime be harmonized with any bilateral and sub regional agreements that might exit along the OBOR routes?
    • What are the current issues in the lex mercatoria used along the OBOR routes, particularly in railway truck and multimodal transportation, such as:
      • the choice of law and forum,
      • choice of instruments securing the repayment of trade credit (bank guarantees, letters of credit, any other?),
      • insurance of transport across several countries.
    • Are there any obstacles to dispute settlement along OBOR routes, including:
      • intergovernmental dimension, for example long-lasting Russia's disputes with Central European Countries over truck permits), and
      • international private law dimension, i.e. the recognition and enforcement of foreign courts decisions and arbitration awards.
    • What public or private dispute resolution systems will form part of the trade and investment transactions encouraged by OBOR? Will OBOR itself develop any new dispute resolution schemes or will OBOR-related transactions rely on existing mechanisms for dispute resolution?
  • Case Studies.
    • What problems have so far been faced by governments, financing institutions, investors, and/or governmental agencies and their contractors during the realisation of first OBOR-related projects? For example, case studies can cover:
      • Projects aiming at connecting ports in the Mediterranean (such as Piraeus in Greece and Durres in Albania) with the rest of Europe, including:
        • Serbo-Hungarian high speed railway-connection,
        • Section of the European motorway XI bridging Montenegro with Serbia,
        • Banja Luka-Split motorway bridging Bosnia and Herzegovina with Croatia, or
        • Arbër Highway bridging Albania with Macedonia.
      • Developments in Russia's/ EEU's railway network including:
        • core route from China across Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus to Poland,
        • planned Moscow - Kazan high-speed-train-connection (with possible connection with Chinese high-speed-trains network and possible extension Beijing),
        • Russia-Mongolia-China railway connection, or
        • planned Hunchun-Vladivostok railway connection.
      • Already operating railway lines such as Chengdu-ŁódŸ or Chongqing-Duisburg, Yiwu-Madrid or Yiwu-Tehran.
      • Road-development-projects in Central Asia including for example Kazakhstan-Center South-Road-Corridor-Project and the Dushanbe-Uzbekistan-Border-Road-Improvement-Project.
      • China-Pakistan economic corridor, including the port of Gwadar on the Arabian Sea to North-West China, or the Pakistan M-4 National Motorway project.
      • Anaklia Port Project in Georgia.
      • Prospects for the Thai Canal (also known as the Kra Canal or the Kra Isthmus Canal) bridging the Gulf of Thailand with the Andaman Sea.
    • Have any disputes already arisen related to the realisation of such projects?

Guest Editors

Prof. Julien Chaisse

Prof. Julien Chaisse
CUHK
View profile

Prof. Manjiao Chi

Prof. Manjiao Chi
Xiamen University
View profile

Dr. Jedrzej Górski

Dr. Jędrzej Górski
CUHK
View profile

Dr. Manzoor Ahmad

Dr. Manzoor Ahmad
World Trade Advisors
View profile

Teresa Cheng

Teresa Cheng
HKIAC
View profile

Time line

The issue has beeen published, but TDM is always interested in follow up material so don't hesitate to contact us with proposals for articles related to this topic.

More news in the archive.

Call for contributions

TDM Call for Papers: Sanctions and International Arbitration: Impact on Substantive and Procedural Issues

Ali Burney, Rinat Gareev, Kiran Nasir Gore, Dini Sejko, Prof. Joel Slawotsky, May Tai

  • Ali Burney
  • Rinat Gareev
  • Kiran Gore
  • Dr Dini Sejko
  • Prof. Joel Slawotsky
  • May Tai

TDM Call for Papers: National Courts as a Forum for the Resolution of Disputes under Article 26 Energy Charter Treaty

John P. Gaffney, Dr. iur Richard Happ,
Lucia Raimanova, Anna-Maria Tamminen, Dr. Catharine Titi

  • John P. Gaffney
  • Dr. iur Ricard Happ
  • Lucia Raimanova
  • Anna-Maria Tamminen
  • Dr. Catharine Titi

TDM Call for Papers: International Investment Arbitration - Environmental Protection and Climate Change Issues

Professor Dr A F M Maniruzzaman, Wendy J. Miles QC, Carla Lewis, Dr Stephen Minas

  • Professor Dr A F M Maniruzzaman
  • Wendy J. Miles QC
  • Carla Lewis
  • Dr Stephen Minas

TDM Call for Papers: The African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA)

J. Chaisse, J. Górski, E. Laryea, M.M. Mbengue, and K. Olaoye

  • Prof. Julien Chaisse
  • Dr. Jedrzej Gorski
  • Prof. Emmanuel Laryea
  • Prof. Makane Moďse Mbengue
  • Kehinde Olaoye
  • More
  • Contribute

Advance publication

Current Trends in the Investment Environmental Jurisprudence and Predictions for Investment Disputes Involving Climate Change

24 Jan 2023

A. Frosch, W. Giemza

  • A. Frosch
  • W. Giemza

Climate Change and the Territoriality of International Investment Agreements

20 Jan 2023

W.J. Simonsick

  • W.J. Simonsick

International Investment Arbitration and the Environment: In the Search for Coexistence

20 Jan 2023

M.J. Monroy Valencia

  • M.J. Monroy Valencia
  • More
  • Contribute

Stay connected

Sign up for our email alerts.

  • Issues
  • Advance publication
  • News
  • Linkedin
  • Twitter
  • RSS

Join the debate

Want to join OGEMID, the leading on-line discussion platform for international dispute resolution?

Simply fill in the registration form to start your trial membership.

Download the app

  1. App store
  2. Google play

The Transnational Dispute Management Journal (TDM, ISSN 1875-4120) and OGEMID listserv focus on recent developments in the area of (investment) arbitration and dispute management, regulation, treaties, judicial and arbitral cases, voluntary guidelines, tax and contracting. Read our Terms & Conditions here, and our Privacy Policy here.

About TDM

  • Terms & Conditions
  • Contribute
  • Subscriptions
  • Contact
  • Help

Other publications

  • Oil, Gas & Energy Law Intelligence (OGEL)
  • Transnational Arbitration Observer (TAO)

© 2004 - 2023. Published by MARIS.

  • Home
  • Contribute
  • Subscriptions
  • Contact
  • Help