Abstract
This paper uses the concept of ecological civilization (EC) that has been developed within China and is now promoted within the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The paper critically examines the suitability of China’s environmental law as an export product and uses the law and economics literature to formulate some critical observations with respect to the suitability of Chinese environmental law as an export product. Law and economics are also used to analyze the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) literature, arguing that the reduction of environmental pollution will only occur with an increase in regulatory and institutional structures. Then, the law and development literature is employed to critically analyze the so-called legal transplants phenomenon, whereby particular legal rules from a donor country are transplanted to a host country. That literature argues that transplants may lead to rejection if they are not demand-driven and do not take into account local needs. The paper therefore concludes with some implications for the idea of transplanting the concept of EC along the BRI.
Highlights
The concept of ecological civilization (EC), developed over a period of years within China, has been put forward by the Chinese leadership within the framework of the so-called Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)
This combination of the notion of EC within the BRI has several interesting aspects. One is that it provides an alternative discourse for sustainable development within China itself [3]; the other is a rather external perspective, as the EC concept implies the export of Chinese environmental standards to the extent that the standards in host countries would be lower than those in China
Even though there are still many uncertainties, both concerning the precise meaning of the concept of ecological civilization [1], as well as concerning the impact of “ecological civilization” on the BRI, I focus on the question of whether ecological civilization in the BRI could imply that Chinese standards could be imposed on projects along the BRI if the host countries might hypothetically have lower environmental standards than China
Summary
The concept of ecological civilization (EC), developed over a period of years within China, has been put forward by the Chinese leadership within the framework of the so-called Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). In this paper, I will proceed to a more general review of that literature, as to some extent the export of the concept of EC may apply to countries with a lower development level than China, and this raises many of the abovementioned questions Both the law and development and law and economics literature include considerations that could inspire the debate, indicating under which particular conditions such an initiative might lead to improving environmental quality in the countries along the BRI, which seems to be the narrative of the Chinese leadership.
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