Harmonizing Legal Diversity: The Role of Soft Law and Model Rules in Belt and Road Dispute Prevention

The Belt and Road Initiative, framework proposed in this article allows for the governance of the project while recognizing that there will be varied legal systems throughout the nations that are working together on this initiative. The paper advocates that Preventive Governance is superior to traditional judicial forms e.g., courts, arbitration, etc. and keeps the level of legal uncertainty down in relation to major transnational infrastructure/investment projects. By integrating materials from previous literature regarding legal development, soft laws, and experimentalist governance, Preventive Governance is viewed as providing a common system and spirit of "collaborative interventions" in addition to the collaborative formulation of community norms; with the intention of fostering equitable ex ante standards of behaviour and improved management of projects. However, the effectiveness of these tools rests on the involvement of affected populations through creating rules that are developed transparently and based on empirical research, including in association with BRI.