"Environmental Regulation" In2012U.s. Model Bit And China’s Countermeasures

While global economy surging, plenty of environmental disasters triggered byobsessed economic interests attract public attention. Since1970s, how to coordinateeconomic development with environmental protection has become a hot topic all overthe world. Conflict between investment and environment has gained much more focusin international investment field. Countries introduce “Environmental Regulation”into their Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) or Free Trade Agreement (FTA) tocoordinate the relationship between investment and the environment. The UnitedStates started to use its Bilateral Investment Agreement as model to negotiate withother countries since1982, from then on, in1994and2004the US governmentreleased the second and the third editions as1994Model and2004Model. April2012,the US published “2012U.S. Model BIT”(2012Model), and treats it as the basedocument while negotiate with the counterparty. Since the1990s, the US began to payclose attention to environment in its foreign investment agreement negotiations,“Environmental Regulation” is introduced in2004and2012Model, moreover, theArticle12"Investment and Environment" in2012Model deepen and refine theenvironmental obligations which should be complied by the Party. As the mostinfluential two-way investment countries all over the world, the BIT between China and the US will attract tremendous attention. Make a general survey of2012USModel, the general requirements for environment include: Forbid any partyweakening or reducing the protections afforded in domestic environmental laws toencourage investment and fail to effectively enforce those laws; Provide opportunitiesfor public (including foreign investors) participation regarding any matter arisingunder environment; Comply with the “Dispute Settlement” regulates in the Model.Throughout China’s Environmental Laws, although there are lots of laws andregulation, but neither form a complete system, the chaos of legislations, nor speciallegislation for foreign investment, international investment and environmentallegislation is blank, lack the environment for foreign investment law enforcementpractice. Therefore, the Chinese government needs to focus the provisions of theModel, clear our rights and obligations, according to our own conditions and situationof domestic environmental legislation, law enforcement, combined with China’seconomic development needs, put forward our views and position in the negotiation,adjust domestic environmental law, improve environmental law system to promoteinvestment in harmony with the environment.