Do BITs Cause Opposition Between Investor Rights and Environmental Protection？

The globalization has brought enormous economic benefits to countries and people, while a series of problems such as environmental pollution have emerged and are becoming more and more urgent. Environmental protection has become increasingly important. At the same time, bilateral Investment Treaties (i.e., BITs) became more controversial in the 1990s. Although BITs can facilitate global investment and financial flows, they may also affect host country regulation as well as the protection of public interest. Most of the relevant research is qualitative, such as special doctrinal studies, case studies or descriptive statistics. The studies of impacts of BITs on environmental protection policy has not been as full as we expect.

Therefore, this paper estimates the impact of BITs on the stringency of countries' environmental protection policies and greenhouse gas emissions through fixed effects models with 29 countries from 1993-2012. The results suggest that it is meaningful to include more provisions on public interest in BITs when countries are drafting treaties.