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.

The BIMSTEC Free Trade Area

The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) is a regional cooperation between Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Nepal, Myanmar, and Thailand since the liberalization of these economies. Member countries need to be more proactive for integrated regional cooperative hubs to enhance trade and investment opportunities in health and other sectors of the economy to cope with the pandemic and its impact. The aim of this chapter is to show how BIMSTEC, a regional cooperative body, can be a driver for socio-economic development, inter-regional trade, and investment opportunities for BIMSTEC countries and cope with COVID-19 and its impact. The BIMSTEC area is home to approximately 1.6 billion citizens accounting to 22% of the worlds inhabitants with a joint gross domestic product (GDP) of 2.7 trillion. Unemployment situation of ‘new poor' can be tackled through close cooperation among the BIMSTEC nations in an effective manner to achieve ‘pareto optimality' through trade and investment among member countries.

EU STRATEGIC INTERESTS IN KAZAKHSTAN IN THE CONTEXT OF GEOPOLITICAL AND GEO-ECONOMIC CHANGES IN THE REGION WITH FOCUS ON CHINA

Kazakhstan has an important position as the EU´s main trading partner in Central Asia and the EU has been its largest trade partner as well as the largest source of foreign direct investment. The importance of China as trade and investment partner is rising, on the contrary, the EU’s share is declining. Even though there remains plenty of scope for further growth, mutual relations and cooperation are influenced by increased geopolitical tensions and geo-economic changes in the wider region. The paper evaluates the position of the EU and its strategic interests in Kazakhstan in the context of geopolitical and geo-economic changes in the region based on the assessment of the trade and investment position of the EU in comparison with the position of China.

The impact of COVID-19 on trade relations between Russia and Spain: contributions from the Iberian country

It is undeniable to note that the ties between countries, especially cultural, historical, economic and geopolitical, are rooted in the political foundations that have been laid between nations and countries throughout the process of shaping what today is known as international relations, a discipline that has become one of the most relevant for understanding the contemporary world. Starting from the premise that human groups, and hence the forms of their organization, permanently establish social links and interactions that constitute the dynamic substrate of all societies, it would be appropriate to analyze how they materialize in a specific bilateral sphere, for which a key aspect of mutual economic interests between the Russian Federation and Spain has been chosen. From an economic perspective and through the analysis of statistics on foreign trade of goods, foreign investment and trade barriers, this research will address the evolution of trade relations over the last five years, focusing on the international trade situation that has occurred since the global COVID-19 pandemic and created a multiplicity of opportunities and challenges for trade and investment between the two states in health sector.

Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, and Environmental Consequences

We empirically investigate the effect of the <i>Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership</i> on the per capita emissions of eight air pollutants and municipal waste. By introducing the same explanatory variables and applying the same empirical strategy and methodologies as in Qirjo and Pascalau (2019), we provide robust evidence suggesting that the implementation of the partnership could be beneficial to the environment because it may reduce per capita emissions of CH₄, hydrofluorocarbons/ perfluorinated chemicals/ SF₆, N₂O, NH₃, and SF₆ for a typical partnership member. This result is based on statistically significant evidence showing that, on average, the pollution haven motive based on national per capita income variations is dominated by the factor endowment argument based on the Heckscher-Ohlin trade theory and the pollution haven motive originating from an inverse measurement of national population density differences. However, we also report statistically significant evidence that the implementation of the partnership could denigrate the environment by increasing per capita emissions of SO₂ and municipal waste.

Opportunities and prospects for Russian-Tajik trade and investment cooperation

In todays world, small and economically weak States find it difficult to develop without the assistance of international partners. Analysis shows that trade relations between Russia and Tajikistan are developing in a mixed manner. Their structure is characterized by some one-sidedness and raw material orientation. Exports from Russia predominate, and Russian products occupy a stable first place in the overall trade turnover of Tajikistan. While Tajik export goods are not so much in demand in Russia, their share in the total Russian trade turnover is insignificant. Russian investment activity, which was active in the zero years of the 21st century, is gradually losing its position. The study shows that this has been facilitated more by the internal-Tajik factor, in particular the sharp deterioration of the investment climate for Russian investors. But, in the authors opinion, the potential for successful trade and investment cooperation between Russia and Tajikistan is quite wide. Ecologically clean and of good quality fresh fruit and vegetables and dried fruit from Tajikistan could, under certain conditions, diversify the Russian market for agricultural products. In turn, the Tajik economy needs new technologies in telecommunications, the agricultural sector, the digitization of all sectors of the economy, and assistance in the construction of hydroelectric power stations, new power lines, roads and railways.

Possible Legal Cooperation for a BRICS Perspective on International and Transnational Economic Law

This research paper seeks to identify and analyze the regulations that rule the economic life of the BRICS countries in the fields of foreign investment’s law, competition law and global administrative law, and further to identify points of convergence and divergence among them in order to indicate the possibilities of legal cooperation to facilitate economic exchanges and investments flow among them. We believe that the possible bottlenecks in trade and investment can be overcome mostly by exchange of experiences, to mitigate the lack of knowledge on national laws and regulations, and by the creation of cooperative mechanisms that facilitate the economic flow among them.