Prosedur dan Efektifitas Mekanisme Penyelesaian Sengketa Perdagangan dan Investasi Dalam ASEAN

Trade and investment play an important role in the practice of relations between countries in the prospective economic cooperation efforts to increase the economic growth of each country. In this regard, ASEAN also has legal instruments that regulate transactions and investments among other countries. In the trade regime, ASEAN has several agreements such as the ASEAN Free Trade Agreement, ASEAN Trade in Goods Agreement, ASEAN Trade in Services Agreement, ASEAN Framework Agreement on Services, and so on. Meanwhile in the investment regime, ASEAN has the ASEAN Comprehensive Investment Agreement. One of the important components in a Regional Trade Agreement is the clause of a legally binding dispute settlement mechanism. In the trade regime, the system and mechanism of the dispute resolution procedures are separated from other trade agreements, the ASEAN Protocol on the Enhanced Dispute Resolution Mechanism. Meanwhile in the Investment regime, the system and mechanism of the dispute resolution procedure are regulated in the same agreement in the ASEAN Comprehensive Investment Agreement. This article will describe the procedural mechanism for the dispute resolution framework of the trade and investment regime in ASEAN, as well as focus on each dispute resolution system with the preferences of each participating country, with differences in the use of the dispute system in the WTO.

Issues and Strategies in Reconciling the Malaysia-EU Palm Oil Discord

The EU has decided to phase out imports of palm oil used in biofuels in the EU by 2030. This affects people in Malaysia who rely on the palm oil business for their livelihood. This chapter examines the events leading up to the EU's anti-palm oil actions and the many ways in which Malaysia has responded to defend its palm oil sector. This includes 1) countering EU's allegation through scientific research, 2) demonstrating its commitment to transform the palm oil industry toward sustainability through certification standards, 3) fostering the commitment to grow palm oil sustainably, 4) garnering support from ASEAN and the international community, 5) expressing its opposition and warnings for retaliatory measures against the EU, and 6) requesting consultation under the WTO dispute settlement mechanism. It presents the political processes that generate policy interventions aimed at defending palm oil trade with the EU alerting that economic decoupling and direct conflict may exacerbate the problem, weaken bilateral relations, and elude good improvements in the palm oil business.

Towards Deeper Judicialisation: Explaining Thailand’s Increasing Engagement with International Adjudication

This paper calls attention to a little-noticed phenomenon about the Thai government’s increasing involvement in international adjudication over the last two decades. For the first time, it has participated in the advisory proceedings before the ITLOS, and made oral statements in the advisory proceedings before the ICJ. It has faced the first treaty-based arbitration by a German investor. There has also been an attempt to initiate the proceedings at the International Criminal Court against Thai officials. All of these parallel the government’s extensive participation in the dispute settlement mechanism of the WTO. What accounts for such developments? The paper argues that Thailand’s constantly increasing engagement with international adjudication should be understood as part of the judicialisation of international relations. Specifically, it is shaped by four main conditions. First, the Thai government has cautiously yet constantly expanded its acceptance of jurisdiction of courts and tribunals. Second, the number of potential claimants has exponentially increased. Third, the composition of the international litigator communities has changed, resulting in the significant increase in the number of lawyers willing to pursue new cases. Fourth, Thai government officials are learning to strategically make themselves more visible in the litigator communities.

Is the WTO Appellate Body in Limbo? The Roots of the Crisis in the WTO Dispute Settlement Body and the Available Routes Navigating the Quagmire

In its over 25 years' history, the dispute settlement mechanism of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has been touted as one of the most active and successful international adjudicatory systems in relation to other international dispute settlement fora. The process in the engagement of the system presents a tripartite structure consisting of consultation, panel and appellate stages, and the enforcement proceedings. The functions of these processes help to promote the trust and confidence of the member states in the WTO trade dispute settlement system. Now the Appellate Body (AB) is paralysed following the incapacitation and consequential suspension of the appellate function of the WTO Dispute Settlement Body (DSB), because of the insufficient membership caused by the United States blockade on the appointment process of AB members. The paper discusses the trajectory of the WTO dispute settlement reform from the GATT regime, the root cause of the suspension of the Appellate Body, and the options available for the disputants in and outside the WTO system. It concludes that the system possesses policy defects if the attitude of a single state can render the AB non-functional and should be transformed when the appellate system is resuscitated.

Diffusion and Decentralized Bargaining in International Organizations: Evidence from Mercosur's Dispute Settlement Mechanism

How and with what effects do institutions diffuse between international organizations (IOs)? An emerging literature extends a key insight of the study of diffusion processes among states to the international level, establishing that the adoption of institutions in IOs is regularly conditioned by the choices of other IOs. Yet, this literature neglects a key contextual difference between the two settings: unlike in the hierarchically structured organizations that have dominated the literature on diffusion, institutional creation, and change in IOs are the result of decentralized bargaining among sovereign governments. This paper develops a heuristic model that shows how diffusion between IOs shapes decision-making within them through its impact on the institutional preferences of individual governments. The model establishes that, unlike in diffusion processes among states, convergence is an unlikely outcome of diffusion between IOs. By implication, studies that take institutional convergence as their starting point are likely to underestimate the pervasiveness of diffusion effects. I demonstrate these arguments with a case study of the establishment of a regional dispute settlement system in Mercosur, a regional organization in Latin America.

Towards International Mechanisms for Resolving Investment Disputes in Qatar

In addition to possessing one of the largest proven gas reserves worldwide, Qatar benefits from a strategic location between the East and West, forming an attractive destination for foreign direct investments. Law No. 1/2019 regulating non-Qatari capital investments provides investors with greater political and social stability along with a full range of benefits. The most significant among these benefits is the freedom offered by the legislator to resolve any dispute by choosing any type of settlement dispute. Hence, Article 16 of Law No. 1/2019 states that ‘unless it is a labour dispute, the non-Qatari Investor may agree to settle any dispute between them and others through arbitration or any other means of settling disputes in accordance with the law’. This article will discuss and analyse the other means of dispute settlement mechanism compatible with Qatar, especially when online dispute resolution has become more significant in the era of COVID-19.

Multilateral Investment Court – a Cure for Investor-State Disputes Under Extra-EU International Investment Agreements?

Both branches of international economic law – international investment and trade law are currently in crisis. Many reforms have been proposed to cure the shortcomings of their dispute resolution mechanisms. Distinctive though they are, it seems that the newest EU’s proposal to establish the Multilateral Investment Court is heavily inspired by the dispute settlement system which exists in the World Trade Organization. The new system has been introduced to replace the investor-State dispute settlement mechanism existing in most investment treaties. In this article, the author assesses the objectives of the reform through the prism of successes and failures of the WTO dispute settlement system.

The Role of Informal Land Dispute Settlement Mechanisms on Family Land Ownership in Tanzania: A Case Study of Mbeya District, Mbeya Region

Informal land disputes settlement mechanisms epitomize a classic example of valuable and useful indigenous knowledge, which Africans have acquired for ages but is not being recognized and sometimes not fully utilized in contemporary African societies. The study aimed to assess the role of informal land dispute settlement mechanisms on family land ownership in Tanzania: A case of Mbeya district. The specific objectives of the study were to identify nature and causes of informal land dispute settlement mechanisms on family land ownership in Mbeya district and to examine the effectiveness of informal land dispute settlement mechanisms on family land ownership in Mbeya district. The study adopted case study research design, target population of the study was 446 respondents, and sample size of the study was 128 respondents. This study employed both qualitative and quantitative research approach data collection tools used was questionnaires, interview and focus group discussion. The study findings indicated that causes of disputes on family land ownership and effectiveness of informal dispute settlement mechanism significantly lead to family land ownership conflicts in Mbeya district as well as in Tanzania. The study concluded that informal land dispute settlement mechanisms help people within the community to attain land ownership through chiefs and community elders because this mechanism can strengthen solidarity, ethnics discipline in the community and recommended that the government should formulate policy and law governing informal land dispute settlement mechanisms on family land ownership to be accommodated in the local system to facilitate quickly land matters rather than depending on western system.

Reforms for culmination of the deadlock in appellate body of WTO: An agenda of saving the multilateral trading system

The World Trade Organization's (WTO’s) dispute settlement mechanism, known as the "pearl in the crown," is stalled due to United States (U.S.) obstruction, which prevents appellate body members from being ordained. This situation continues, and the WTO’s dispute settlement function is paralyzed since 2019. The WTO has faced a crisis in recent years, and the trade legislation has stagnated. The dispute settlement body was also blocked due to U.S. interference, which led to the failure of the appellate body’s members to be selected. The data has been gathered for this descriptive study using secondary research method, including different newspaper articles and the internet, which were outlined and noted. This paper presents and evaluates several existing proposals on how to get out of the impasse. This paper points out whether the existing WTO members can choose to join or not participate in establishing a new appellate body. On this basis, it makes its own relatively unique proposal, namely, to establish a substantial dispute settlement mechanism outside the WTO, parallel to the existing dispute settlement mechanism, and it demonstrates the legal feasibility of the proposal. Immediately, the states should begin negotiations on the significant agreements required for this new appellate body. It will effectively solve the deadlock in the dispute settlement mechanism caused by the United States, blocking the appointment of members of the appellate body.

Comparison of First to File Doctrine and Trademark Dispute Settlement Mechanism in Indonesia and the United States

The research explained comparatively the application of the first to file doctrine and the trademark dispute settlement mechanism in Indonesia and in the United States. The purpose of this research was to provide a broad explanation of the application of the first to file doctrine and provide an overview of the mechanism for settling the problem of infringement of trademark rights. This study used a normative juridical research method with a statutory approach (Statute Approach) accompanied by a Comparative Approach, the data used was secondary data. Based on the research results, it was known that the Trademark Law still recognizes and / or implements the first to file and first to use doctrine. In Indonesian law, which basically adheres to the first to file doctrine, it still provides room for the first user to claim ownership of a trademark. Meanwhile, The Lanham Act accommodates the doctrine of first to use and first to file simultaneously but is limited by the trademark rights protection space. The mechanisms for settling trademark rights infringement disputes in Indonesia and in the United States have similarities and differences. The similarity is in both country, trademark dispute settllement is done through the litigation and non-litigation mechanism. The difference is that in Indonesia the most common mechanism is litigation, while in the United States the non-litigation mechanism is preferred in settling disputes over trademark rights.