On 15 August 2009, the Agreement on Investment of the Framework Agreement on Comprehensive Economic Cooperation between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations was signed in Bangkok, Thailand. The Investment Agreement is the last one of the ASEAN-China free trade agreements. This...

Decisions by arbitral tribunals in investment treaty cases do not have formal precedential status. Yet certain issues recur, and prior decisions at the least provide guidance to later tribunals. The content of the most frequently invoked substantive treaty provisions - the obligations to accord...

Using a panel of 11 upper-middle income emerging economies, the paper investigates financial development threshold levels that influence FDI inflows. Our findings show that higher banking sector and stock market development above the threshold levels have a positive and significant impact on FDI...

This is an introduction to a new development in the international arena that poses a threat to the ability of countries to tailor patent and regulatory laws to promote access to medicine. Basically, certain international agreements permit foreign companies to sue a country for compensation if...

U.S. assertion of political power in the World Trade Organization (WTO)'s appointment process reminds us of the tenuous balance that exists between state power, adjudication and legitimacy in WTO dispute settlement. Even more fundamentally, it prompts questions about whether reformation of...

This article seeks to explain recent decisions by countries to terminate their existing bilateral investment treaties (BITs) and revisit their commitment to future international investment agreements (IIAs). It argues that BITs, transnational corporations (TNCs), host States and international...

Chapter 11 of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) allows most foreign investors from any NAFTA country to seek monetary damages for properties that might be appropriated, or any measure that might be deemed "tantamount to an expropriation" by the governments of any of the other NAFTA...

China is a major recipient of foreign investment and has become a major investor internationally. Its active participation in international treaties relating to investment, in the form of bilateral investment treaties and, more recently, free trade agreements, when combined with the outward push...

The backlash against the expansive interpretation of key disciplines of international investment law by arbitral tribunals has prompted a host of strategies, implemented mostly by developing countries, aimed at walking away from the system. These range from denouncing the ICSID Convention and...