Annual Working Paper Series 2026 | CPEC at the Crossroads - Ammar Junaid Asghar & Qifan Jiang

This presentation is part of the Annual Working Paper Series centered on the theme: “CPEC at the Crossroads: Governance, Regional Politics, and Sustainable Development.” The series brought together senior stakeholders from government, diplomacy, academia, policy research, and early-career researchers to engage in focused discussions on the evolving challenges and opportunities surrounding CPEC. This session features Ammar Junaid Asghar, Associate at RIAA Barker Gillette (Lahore) and Research Assistant to Hon’able Justice (Retd.) Mansoor Ali Shah, and Qifan Jiang, LLM (Leiden University) and MSc International Law candidate at East China University of Political Science and Law, who presented on “Investor-State Arbitration in the BRI: Legitimizing Environmental Claims Outside of Soft-Law Doctrines.” Their presentation explored the intersection of international investment law and environmental protection within the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), examining how investor-state arbitration mechanisms can provide greater legitimacy and enforceability to environmental claims beyond traditional soft-law frameworks.