HU Xiaofan*

 

Abstract: Environmental rights are an important part of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important discourses on respecting and protecting human rights. Soft law has played a significant role in the integrated development of the theories of environmental rights and human rights. At the practical level, the soft law cooperation documents of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) have established general principles for the protection of environmental rights, policies for addressing climate change, standards for green investment and financing, and obligations for multinational corporations to protect the environment, making a contribution to the development and protection of environmental rights. In the future process of global environmental governance, it is necessary to start with the BRI’s soft law documents to further clarify the specific protection standards for environmental rights and promote the transformation of soft law into binding bilateral or multilateral agreements at the international level. In addition, it is essential to urge governments and enterprises to fulfill their due diligence obligations for environmental protection and strengthen information disclosure by emphasizing public interest responsibilities. Efforts should also be made to improve the environmental compliance systems of “going global” enterprises and enhance government supervision over corporate accountability for environmental rights. A corporate environmental protection accountability mechanism should be established, so as to actively promote global environmental governance in a more just and reasonable direction.

 

Keywords: co-construction of the Belt and Road Initiative · environmental rights · human rights · soft law governance · hard law