Today’s guest post is from Edmund Bao, a lawyer with King & Wood Mallesons who works principally in the areas of international arbitration and anticorruption:

The “One Belt, One Road” Initiative (OBOR), spearheaded by China, is an enormous and ambitious infrastructure development project (or series of integrated projects) involving an inland economic “belt” and a maritime silk “road” that together will include approximately 65 countries across Eurasia and parts of Africa, require a total capital expenditure of approximately US$4-8 trillion dollars, and affect around 4.4 billion people (63% of global population). Given the size of the initiative—as well as the fact that infrastructure projects are often considered especially high corruption risks, and the fact that so many of the countries involved are known to suffer from high levels of public corruption—ensuring integrity in this project must be a top priority if it is to succeed. Some projects have already been affected by corruption, including the cancelled US$2.5 billion Budhi Gandaki Hydro Electric Dam Project in Nepal (irregularities in the project bid phase) and the temporary funding halt for the flagship China-Pakistan Economic Corridor Road Project (due to graft).

The countries participating in OBOR have acknowledged this concern. At the opening of the Belt and Road Forum in June 2017, President Xi Jingping called for countries to “strengthen international counter-corruption coordination so that the Belt and Road will be a road with high ethical standards.” And in the joint communique released at the conclusion of the Forum, the leaders of OBOR countries in attendance agreed to “work together to fight against corruption and bribery in all their forms.” Yet it is not yet clear what measures can or will be put in place to achieve the sort of coordination that President Xi and the other OBOR country leaders recognized is necessary.

I suggest that one way—perhaps the best way—to achieve the requisite level of anticorruption coordination in the context of the OBOR initiative is to establish a supranational anticorruption body with oversight for OBOR projects. That is, I advocate the creation of a “Silk Road Anticorruption Body” that would have four primary functions: Continue reading →