ABSTRACT

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), aka One Belt, One Road (OBOR) is an ambitious policy project meant to develop new trade relationships with foreign Countries, entailing, in particular an estimated $ 5 trillion-infrastructure program spanning across Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Africa. 

This ambitious project includes the development of two major routes and the related infrastructures: the Silk Road Economic Belt (the Belt) through CW Asia and Central Europe, and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road (the Road), connecting SE Asia, Oceania, North Africa up to Europe, within which Italy plays a key role. 

The research project, carried out by the Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna, in collaboration with the Universities of Genoa, Insubria and Trieste, aims at identifying the possible legal instruments for attracting Chinese investors to finance the construction and/or operation of a transport infrastructure in Italy according to the Italian and EU law consistently with the needs of sustainability both from an environmental and a cultural perspective. 

In this respect, the project necessarily implies wider issues of interdisciplinary nature concerning i) the assessment of requirements and limits, according to the Chinese law, to investments of a wholly private or public Chinese company in Western infrastructures, ii) EU competence to directly negotiate  with the People's Republic of China, iii)  the ADR instruments applicable to possible disputes, iii) BRI sustainability both from an environmental and cultural perspective. 

- Credit image to: https://pixabay.com/it/photos/architettura-edifici-auto-citt%C3%A0-1837176/