This case has been a flashpoint for recent debates over investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS). For Australia, subjected to its first ISDS claim, the case triggered extensive public discussion over whether to continue including ISDS clauses in future bilateral investment treaties (BITs) and...

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement was signed in February 2016 by 12 Asia-Pacific economies that already account for 40% of world GDP, including the United States, Japan and Australia. If ratified, economists model significant economic growth prospects, especially for smaller and/or...

Southeast Asia has long been known as a particularly dynamic part of the global economy. In 2007 the leaders of the ten member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations further agreed to accelerate the project to complete a single market or “ASEAN Economic Community” by the end of...

This paper outlines the historical evolution of Australia's foreign direct investment (FDI) regulation generally, under national law and more recently bilateral investment treaties (BITs) or investment chapters of free trade agreements (FTAs). This sets the stage for closer analysis of the...

As in some developing countries and more recently some developed countries worldwide and in the Asian region, Australia has faced significant internal opposition and public debate especially over treaty-based investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS). As outlined in Part II(1), concerns have...

Based on an interdisciplinary and cross-institutional research project (2014-7) assessing international investment treaty dispute management more broadly, this paper (abridged from a related project) introduces part of our joint project examining key questions around the effect of investment...

This paper offers the first detailed English-language analysis of international investment arbitration law and practice in Thailand. Part 1 briefly introduces burgeoning foreign direct investment (FDI) and investment treaties in the Asian region, followed by more recent emergence of significant...

Independent director requirements have spread throughout Asia, generating diverse definitions, enforcement patterns and cadres of directors (Part I). Yet the proliferation itself, and some of its features, provide some support for convergence in corporate governance, especially in function...

New Zealand's newly elected Labour coalition government announced in October 2017 that it would not agree to investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions in future trade and investment agreements, and would try to amend them in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement. This has...

Mark Ramseyer has been a leading force in bringing to bear the methods of Law and Economics to an increasingly ambitious analysis of the Japanese legal and economic systems. He has deliberately assumed an iconoclastic position in debunking a number of widely-held beliefs about Japan. More...