The article scrutinizes the purported synergies between the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the United Nations (UN) 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development by evaluating the transnational legal order regulating environmental and social impacts of BRI economic activities. From the perspective of international law and sustainable development, three problematic features are identified. First, the bilateral character of agreements between China and BRI-participating States produces fragmented and variable sustainability standards. Second, the informality of State-to-State arrangements often hinder parliamentary and public deliberation in host States. Lastly, BRI decision-making processes restrict non-State actor participation and thereby disregard the very communities harmed by infrastructure projects. To clear its path to sustainability and bring it closer to the UN agenda, BRI’s legal and regulatory framework must become multilateral, transparent, and inclusive. The proposal entails bringing to fore the relevant background international legal norms, especially on environmental, labor, and human rights protection, and consolidating them in a framework agreement that sets minimum sustainability safeguards for transboundary economic activities like foreign-funded infrastructure projects. Reforms are imperative because the subject matter of the Initiative requires international cooperation and involves not only the economic, environmental, and social concerns of two States but also implicates the goals and interests of the international community.

Reducing inequality in its multiple dimensions is key to sustainability. Under the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, one way to meet the goal of narrowing gaps between and within countries is by implementing the special and differential treatment (SDT) principle. The most concrete and well-established implementation of this principle within international trade law is through the Enabling Clause, which authorizes wealthy States to grant, under specified conditions, preferential market access to select developing countries. Yet commentators, consisting primarily of economists and developing-country representatives, argue that tariff preferences are often inadequate to grow the economies of many in the Global South, much less to reduce inequalities. A legal perspective that could bolster this argument remains sparse. This article fills said gap by explaining that while international trade law operationalizes the SDT principle with a heavy emphasis on tariff preferences, the principle is additionally expressed in several other provisions under the other World Trade Organization (WTO) covered agreements: Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade; Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures; Agreement on Trade Facilitation. These under-studied provisions demonstrate crucial but overlooked aspects of the SDT principle, namely, capacity-building and international assistance and cooperation. Therefore, critically analyzing these provisions is important to ascertain whether and how implementation of the SDT principle can reduce inequalities and support sustainable development. This legal analysis contributes in two ways to the broader inquiry about the role of international trade law in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). First, on a practical level, the article suggests legal bases or sources for additional indicators needed to better measure and monitor progress in reaching the target. Second, the analysis reveals a necessity to revisit and further scrutinize assumptions underlying the legal mechanisms within the trade regime that States and other relevant actors are using to pursue valuable global objectives.

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Faced with the reality of finite and scarce resources, and the fact that realization of most economic and social rights requires resources, can a State comply with its icescr obligations, particularly Article 2(1) thereof, when it engages in investment promotion activities? This paper examines the conditions under which the pursuit of foreign direct investment (fdi) can be deemed consistent with State obligation to fulfill socioeconomic rights. It is posited that investment promotion activities potentially augment the limited national income of many developing countries, thereby creating conditions that make more possible the enjoyment of socio-economic rights. This relationship is premised on the caveat that, as part of the State’s duty to protect, it should ensure the pre-existence of a set of institutions that sufficiently regulates the behavior of foreign businesses and a certain level of human capital and physical infrastructure conducive to knowledge and technology transfer.