A Study On The Legal Issues Of Environmental Impact Assessment Of Overseas Investment In China

As an important system of environmental protection,Environmental impact assessment is conducive to the realization of environmental justice,practices the principles of prevention and sustainable development.EIA of China's overseas investment projects is helpful to maintain the ecological environment of the host country,safeguard the interests of China's overseas investment enterprises,maintain China's green international image and promote the sustainable development of China's overseas investment.Although China's overseas investment has developed rapidly under the background of economic globalization and China's "Belt and Road" construction,but in the practice of overseas investment,the phenomenon that China's overseas investment projects have been hindered by environmental impact assessment has become more and more serious.On the one hand,it is caused by the different EIA system of the host country,the instability of the EIA law,the increasingly strict EIA standards and the inadequate implementation of the EIA law.On the other hand,it is closely related to the lack of EIA awareness of overseas investment enterprises in our country.In view of this,the governance and improvement of EIA system not only involves the host country,but also involves the home country of investors,but also involves the coordination and cooperation of the international EIA standard system.It is necessary to require China's overseas investment enterprises to do an environmental assessment of their projects in the quasi-exit stage and to implement high standards of EIA on the basis of compliance with the host country's EIA standards from the perspective of the investor's home country without interfering with the sovereignty of the host country.At the same time,efforts should be made to reduce the differences in the EIA system among countries and to improve the implementation capacity of the host country's EIA system and improve the awareness of environmental impact assessment of overseas investors in China.In particular,this can be done in the following ways.First of all,on the basis of drawing lessons from the experience of the United States,the World Bank and the AIIB in transnational investment EIA governance,China should make detailed provisions on the subject,contents,procedures and responsibilities of the EIA of overseas investment projects through legislation.China's overseas investment enterprises are required to do an environmental impact assessment in accordance with the above provisions in the quasi-exit stage of the project.Secondly,starting from bilateral,regional and multilateralism,efforts should be made to agree on the EIA obligations of China's overseas investors in the relevant treaties and agreements,and to reach relevant agreements,declarations or initiatives on EIA cooperation.