Symposium: International Investment Arbitration Across Asia

On February 16, 2017, the Centre for Asian and Pacific Law at the University of Sydney and the Sydney Centre for International Law will hold a symposium on "International Investment Arbitration Across Asia." The program is here. Here's the idea:

Treaty-based investor-state arbitration (or ISDS more generally) is an increasingly topical issue, as FDI flows continue to grow, especially across Southeast Asia and the rest of the Asian region, and host states have begun to experience some claims brought by disgruntled foreign investors.

The symposium, organised by the Centre for Asian and Pacific Law at the University of Sydney (CAPLUS) and the Sydney Centre for International Law (SCIL), with sponsorship from the Sydney Southeast Asia Centre and Herbert Smith Freehills, builds on the lively and timely conference funded by Chulalongkorn University's ASEAN Studies Centre in Bangkok on 18 July 2016, which compared the experiences and policy debates in each of the ten ASEAN member states. Those country reports are now being revised for review and eventual publication in a leading journal, with versions then being combined with papers on pan-Asian investment treaties and arbitration to be presented on 16 February 2017, for a co-edited book published by the same legal publisher.

This upcoming symposium will bring together leading experts from Southeast Asia, North Asia, India and Oceania, including several from institutional partners of The University of Sydney. It will help round off a major cross-institutional and interdisciplinary research project into international investment dispute management more generally, funded by the Australian Research Council since 2014.