Solving BRI-related Disputes

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is an international project involving many countries around the world. The economic development and the implementation of new infrastructural and investment projects have been giving rise to a growing number of cross-border disputes. To meet these challenges China has created specialized entities, competent to solve disputes arising from the BRI. The aim of this article is therefore to identify? the latest trends in this area and to assess whether the Chinese solutions and proposed dispute resolution methods will permanently change the global landscape.

Gathering evidence is of utmost importance in any legal proceeding. However, sometimes, one of the parties may hide specific evidence, which complicates the adjudicators’ reaching of a fair conclusion. For such cases, judges or arbitrators can use several tools, one of which is adverse inference. An adverse inference is a negative conclusion that may be drawn from a party’s failure to provide some evidence without a valid excuse for non-production. By drawing it, adjudicators assume this evidence would harm the party’s interests. At the same time, adverse inference is quite a radical tool because it may strongly impact the final decision. Because of this, adjudicators are sometimes cautious about using it. This paper analyzes the notion of adverse inference in the context of the dispute resolution mechanism available in the WTO. In particular, three cases were summarized in which the Appellate Body made interesting findings regarding the application of adverse inference. As a result of the work, conclusions from these cases are made that can be used by lawyers in future WTO disputes, as well as in other international and national dispute resolution fora.