China's 'One Belt One Road' - Transnational and Multilevel Rule of Law Challenges from a European Perspective

Abstract

The paper concerns the rule of law challenges associated with the One Belt One Road programme initiated by China. The aim of OBOR is to increase efficient resource allocation and to integrate markets in the more than 60 participating states in Eurasia. Rule of law is essential from a market economy perspective as it provides the market agents with legal certainty about their investments and should be considered as part of the OBOR strategy. The OBOR rule of law challenges are a result of 1) different political and normative approaches to rule of law where the article compares rules of law in a Chinese and European context to highlight such differences as well as finding similarities between them and 2) the multilevel nature of rule of law at national and international level. OBOR will have both a transnational and international dimension where China may influence the rules of laws developments in OBOR’s many sectors and levels. However, there are some minimum requirements to rule of law which should be upheld in OBOR in order to protect legal certainty for the participating OBOR parties. Some rule of law challenges have already answers in existing multilateral systems, others need to be handled as OBOR progresses