Analysis And Indications On Environmental Clause Of American Investment Treaties

The first part of the paper overviews the development of the Environmental Clause. As international investment flourishing all over the world, the environmental issue in international investment becomes more and more important in the area of international legislation nowadays. Growing out of nothing, the environmental clauses are developing its system from its initial singleness to present comprehensiveness. Among all kinds of Treaty Agreements, the Environmental Clause of American Investment Treaties plays an important role on the international stage and means a lot to Chinese research also, while China has a weakness in adopting the Environmental Clause.The second part of the paper analysis the environmental clause of American Investment Treaties. On the basis of the North American Free Trade Agreement and the2012United States BIT Model, this part analysis the actual application rule of environmental clause and its relationships with other clauses, including "shall not lower domestic environmental standards clause","environment consultation procedure" and so on, summaries the ways and results in describing the environmental clauses, and elaborating its main characters.The third part of the paper analysis the limits of the environmental clause of American investment treaties in practice. In this part, by analyzing some newest typical cases, the problems of the application in environmental clause are elaborated specifically from the perspective of arbitration practice. In general, the host country’s environmental measures are still restricted by National Treatment Rules, Fair and Equitable Treatment Rules and Indirect Expropriation Rules and so on. This paper tries to find out why these environmental clauses failed in protecting environment frequently and why these environmental clauses born with such defects.The last part of the paper discusses the environmental clauses in Chinese treaties and proposes several advice of perfecting the environmental clauses. On the basis of China-New Zealand Free Tread Agreement and China-Canada Bilateral Investment Agreement, this part analyses agreements with environmental clauses signed by China by now. elaborates Chinese legislation pattern in this area, and summarizes similarities and differences compared with other countries’ agreements, and proposes the author’s opinion in adopting and perfecting environmental clauses.