Study On The Trend Of ICSID Jurisdiction Expansion And China’s Solutions

Since the late 1990 s, with the accelerating process of economic globalization,international investment activities have become increasingly frequent, thus the international investment disputes increase gradually. ICSID is an important place to solve international dispute, and plays an important role in dispute settlement, which has been widely recognized by all countries. Meanwhile, in order to promote and protect the development of international investment, the countries all over the world have enacted and signed treaties within the investment protection agreement. In this context, bilateral investment agreements emerge as the times require, and widely exist in the world. The surge in international investment agreements is the nation’s effort to attract foreign direct investment, and a method for investors to create a more transparent, stable, favorable investment environment.But recently the jurisdiction of ICSID gradually present an expansion trend, and tend to over protect the interests of investors and ignore the economic sovereignty of indifference, thus triggering a crisis of legitimacy of ICSID. Because of the“Convention” entrust the tribunals with larger discretion on the confirmation of the ICSID jurisdiction, which leading to expansion of interpreting the subject, proper dispute and the way of agreement, so as to achieve the purpose of expanding its jurisdiction. Ways of jurisdiction expansion is mainly through interpreting the BIT,which signed by the host country and the home country of the investors. This led to the international investment arbitration awards made by the ICSID lack of consistency,and ICSID failed to be properly maintained public interest of the host states.China as the largest developing country, and is placed in a major opportunity for initiating the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank(AIIB), which is widely recognized as an important instrument for win-win cooperation in Asia. And meanwhile, China is in the process of negotiating with the EU and America on signing the BIT. Thus, China should response properly in response to the ICSID crisis of legitimacy. Since it is only fair for China to shoulder its due share that is within thecountry’s capability and is compatible with its status in various aspects. The author holds that we should be against the expansion of ICSID jurisdiction through the way of accepting the jurisdiction of the ICSID in the process of signing or revising bilateral investment treaties. Plus protecting the public interests of China actively, and balance the interests between the host country and investors. In this way, the sovereignty of our country especially the foreign judicial sovereignty could be effectively safeguarded, and China’s investment environment and the interests of investors in China would be safeguarded as well.