ABSTRACT
The OBOR and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) arguably represent two of modern China’s greatest 21st century initiatives. This chapter addresses the legal and institutional relationship between these two initiatives from an environmental sustainability perspective. It begins by observing that the Chinese MSR Initiative relies on the development of major infrastructure designed to facilitate the growth of related maritime industries along the route of this Silk Road. This infrastructure is in turn, dependent on the usual mix of public and private investment finance that characterises much of the world’s major infrastructure projects today. In this regard, the AIIB represents a new and potentially useful source of international finance for direct and indirect support for proposed infrastructure projects along the MSR. This chapter focuses on AIIB decisions to support such infrastructure projects, in light of the AIIB international investment finance decision-making procedures and the Environmental and Social Framework adopted by the AIIB in February, 2016. Specifically, this chapter examines whether the environmental sustainability objectives, principles, procedures and standards within this framework are (or will be) effectively applied within such proposed projects along the MSR.
