This article examines the interactions of power politics and international economic law in the development of regionalism in Asia, particularly in the context of United States-China trade relations. It argues that the process of regional economic integration in Asia has been slow-moving because...

What kind of technical assistance and capacity building benefits do developing countries enjoy if they sign a free trade agreement (FTA) with developed countries? This is a frequently asked question among developing country officials involved in FTA policymaking. While we tend to normatively...

This paper examines the legal status of a treaty after the termination of diplomatic relations between two countries by using Taiwan-Panama FTA as a case study. This paper argues that the severance of diplomatic relations does not affect the legal relations of Taiwan-related FTAs. This paper...

The paper observes that the fragmented international investment law regime is moving toward harmonisation. In the near future, five major agreements could govern a very substantial share of global investment: a United States-China bilateral investment treaty (BIT), a European Union-China BIT,...

This chapter evaluates a number of special legal issues facing the negotiating parties of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (‘TPP') as they develop a formal State-State dispute settlement mechanism. In particular, it looks at issues relating to conflicts of norms, conflicts of...

This paper argues that the formation of regional integration frameworks can be best understood as a dominant state’s attempt to create a preferred regional framework in which it can exercise exclusive influence. In this context, it is important to observe not only which countries are included...

This paper proposes a new method to predict the impact of preferential trade agreements (PTAs) on trade and welfare taking the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement as a case study. Relying on a novel dataset of treaty texts covering all trade agreements notified to the WTO, we first...