Harmonising Legal Diversity:

The Role of Soft Law and Model Rules in Belt and Road Dispute Prevention

Sima Nzang Julio Cesar Obiang and Wang Yingying

 

ABSTRACT: The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) spans numerous jurisdictions with divergent legal systems and political economies, exposing large-scale projects to significant regulatory uncertainty. While post-dispute adjudication is widely discussed, this article argues for a more effective focus on preventive governance to manage legal diversity, rather than pursuing full legal convergence. The paper conceptualises preventive governance as a system, a spirit, and a style. As a system, it establishes model clauses, guidelines, and institutional procedures to guide contracts and project management ex ante. As a spirit, it requires a collaborative process for norm-making that empowers affected states and communities. As a style, it seeks an integrative relationship between soft and hard law, where non-binding norms shape expectations and practice, while key safeguards are formalised in binding instruments. Drawing on legal development theory, soft law, and experimentalist governance, the article evaluates the functional benefits and structural risks of this approach. It concludes that soft law and model rules may contribute to more predictable and equitable cooperation across diverse legal orders, but only if the design of rules remains open, transparent, and responsive to empirical feedback.