Thesis On The Investment Disputes Settlement In The Energy Pipelines Between China And Its Neighboring Countries

It is possible that there are investment disputes in the energy pipelines, which appear in the economic incorporation between China and its neighboring countries, such as Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Burma. Existing legal files can't be used to settle these disputes, like:the Energy Charter Treaty, the regional multilateral treaties which China have taken part in, the bilateral treaties and the inter-governmental agreements between China and other countries. But there are specialized articles about investment disputes settlement in the BITs between China and other five countries aforementioned, so the author takes BITs as the basic documents to research the investment disputes settlement in the energy pipeline. It is the first choose for the author to settle the investment disputes between the host countries and the investor's home country by the diplomatic channels, because there are nice diplomatic traditions and multilevel platforms of diplomatic negotiations between China and the five countries. And we can try to settle these disputes by the international arbitration if they can't be settled by the diplomatic channels. The author advises settling the investment disputes between an investor and its host country by the ICSID arbitration. It is the best way to protect the benefit of the investors in the max degree, though the are many other ways, for example:friendly negotiations between investors and the host countries, the domestic administrative or judicial proceedings of the host countries, an ad hoc tribunal and so on. The advantages of the ICSID arbitration are as follow:1. Its rigorous formation of the arbitration tribunal and mature arbitration procedure rules can be used to assure the substantive justice; 2. when the ICSID verdict is enforced in the host countries, its own explanation, modification and the cancellation procedure can reduce the intervention of the court in the host country. If the ICSID arbitration is used to settle these investment disputes, these conditions as follow should be satisfied:a. Parties of the dispute should be suitable; b. The dispute should be an investment and legal dispute; c. There must be a contract in which parties of the investment dispute agree to submit the dispute to the ICSID arbitration. In the energy pipeline incorporation between China and its neighboring countries, all of these conditions can be meet, so the ICSID arbitration can be used to settle the investment disputes between Chinese investors and their host countries.