China to set up dispute settlement regime for BRI: Experts
With repaid progress of Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) around the globe, China is likely to consider setting up dispute settlement regime to ensure its smooth working and to meet the expectations of relevant parties, says Global Times quoting Chinese experts
BEIJING,(Pakistan Point News - 05th Feb, 2018 ) : With repaid progress of Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) around the globe, China is likely to consider setting up dispute settlement regime to ensure its smooth working and to meet the expectations of relevant parties, says Global Times quoting Chinese experts.
There are two main ways to solve disputes: one is the litigation mechanism, including legislative and judicial methods, while the second mainly involves arbitration and mediation. When it comes to the litigation mechanism, there are varied legal systems in economies along the B&R, which makes it more difficult to resolve disputes in this way.
The legal systems include the Continental law system, the Anglo-American law system and the Islamic law system. Moreover, most of the economies involved are developing countries, where domestic legal systems are imperfect.
In Jordan, judicial proceedings for commercial disputes generally take three to four years, according to data from China's Ministry of Commerce. As for arbitration and mediation, these methods play an important role in effectively promoting dispute settlement, but there are many problems when such methods are applied to B&R disputes.
It can be expensive and time-consuming to resort to international arbitration institutions. The International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) is one of the most important such institutions.
But the average arbitration fee per case at the ICSID is about $500,000, which is unaffordable to most low-income countries along the B&R. China already has the capacity to build dispute settlement regimes and institutions.
For one thing, since the financial crisis in 2008, developing countries have become an important force for the improvement of the global economy, and China has made a great contribution to the development of the world economy.
As the initiator of the B&R initiative, China has a responsibility to build an associated dispute settlement regime, contributing to global governance, the experts added.