Obstacles and Resolution Mechanisms for Environmental Protection in Enterprises' Outward Investment under the "Belt and Road" Initiative

As the "Belt and Road" Initiative advances, the scale of outward investment by Chinese enterprises continues to expand, but they simultaneously face a series of obstacles. Host countries' increasingly stringent environmental regulations lead to heightened environmental legal risks. Concurrently, domestically, the absence of specialized environmental protection legislation for overseas investment, coupled with the lack of extraterritorial effect of China's Environmental Protection Law and other practical issues, results in insufficient legal oversight of outward investment, urgently necessitating systematic solutions. This paper focuses on the environmental protection obstacles faced by enterprises in their outward investment and corresponding resolution mechanisms. It emphasizes analyzing the risks posed by host country environmental regulations and the gaps in home country legal supervision, proposing pathways for the improvement of legal regulation. Based on the above research, this paper proposes a three-tier resolution mechanism. First, improve the top-level design by expediting the formulation of the Overseas Investment Environmental Protection Law and upgrading existing guidelines into administrative regulations. Second, construct a compliance firewall centered on the "Three-Nation Law" database, utilizing contractual liability allocation as a tool, and backed by environmental liability recourse and insurance. Third, strengthen Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), implement environmental protection strategies tailored to local conditions, and impose stricter constraints on heavily polluting industries. Finally, it is hoped that this research will help resolve the environmental legal issues faced by enterprises during their outward investment under the "Belt and Road" Initiative, balance economic development with environmental protection, and promote sustainable development.