With his comparative and analytical review of China's treaty policy and practice in international investment law, Vaccaro-Incisa draws the most detailed, comprehensive, effective, and objective work ever published on this subject.

This is a comprehensive commentary on Chinese bilateral investment treaties (BITs), which are being increasingly used in Chinese foreign investment policy. It will define BITs' role analyse and interpret their key provisions, and discuss the future of China's investment programme.

The first volume in the Silk Road Studies in International Economic Law Series, China and International Investment Law: Twenty Years of ICSID Membership examines cutting-edge issues of international investment law and arbitration in interaction with China, the second largest economy of the world. With particular attention to ongoing major negotiations of bilateral and regional investment treaties, including the TPP, TTIP and China's BIT negotiations with the EU and USA, the collection is timely, thorough, and incisive. All readers with an interest in the latest developments in international investment law in general, and the Chinese foreign investment regime in particular, will find an indispensable new resource in this collection of essays from esteemed experts in the field. The volume originated from the "China and ICSID" International Workshop and Roundtable on International Investment Law and Arbitration, organized to commemorate the 20th anniversary of China's accession to the ICSID Convention.

Comprehensively investigate key characteristics, evolutionary path, driving forces, interpreting methodologies, and some missing puzzles of Chinese BITs.

Since China adopted its 'open door' policy in 1978, which altered its development strategy from self-sufficiency to active participation in the world market, its goal has remained unchanged: to assist the readjustment of China's economy, to coordinate its modernization programs, and to improve its quality of life. With the 1997 launch of the 'Going Global' policy, an outward focus regarding foreign investment was added, to circumvent trade barriers and improve the competitiveness of Chinese firms. In order to accommodate inward and outward investment, China's participation in the international investment regime has underpinned its efforts to join multilateral investment-related legal instruments and conclude international investment agreements. This collection, compiled by award-winning scholar Professor Julien Chaisse, explores the three distinct tracks of China's investment policy and strategy: bilateral agreements including those with the US and the EU; regional agreements including the Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific; and global initiatives, spear-headed by China's presidency of the G20 and its 'Belt and Road initiative'. The book's overarching topic is whether these three tracks compete with each other, or whether they complement one another - a question of profound importance for the country's political and economic future and world investment governance.

The economic and political rise of China has led to considerable controversy regarding potential repercussions for the current global governance architecture. At least two opposing scenarios are conceivable: China's adaptation to the rules and norms system shaped by developed countries or the pursuit of a distinctive policy approach, a possibility that involves the danger of clashing regulatory policies. A recent and increasingly dynamic trend giving substance to the phenomenon of China's rising importance is the growth of outward foreign direct investments (OFDI) by Chinese enterprises. Against this background, the present paper investigates the evolution and change of Chinese international investment policy-making, with a particular focus on bilateral investment treaties (BITs) as the most important legal instrument for the governance of global foreign direct investment (FDI) flows. China has been a committed signatory of BITs since the early 1980s (120 treaties up to 2007). It is thus the second most active contracting party to BITs worldwide, surpassed only by Germany. The traditional Chinese BIT approach, however, has only cautiously supported the legal protection of FDI. As a mere capital-importer, China concluded BITs that contained serious reservations and safeguards intended to preserve policy spaces for the regulation of incoming investments. Starting at the end of the 1990s the Chinese government initiated a decisive policy shift towards a liberal BIT approach characterized by high levels of substantive and procedural investment protection. Upon examining a representative sample of Sino-foreign BITs, this study concludes that the policy shift was a pro-active decision of the Chinese government intended to introduce liberal treaty provisions first and foremost with developing countries which are the main destination of Chinese OFDI. A further explanation for this development may be found in the great importance attached to the promotion of OFDI through the “Going Global” strategy announced by the Chinese government at the end of the 1990s. In sum, this paper concludes that China has adopted a complementary rather than a competitive approach in the field of global FDI governance. China has fully agreed to standards of the current international liberal regime for FDI protection and has become an important global player in this context. This policy shift will yield consequences for China itself by levelling the playing field for international investors. Furthermore, developing countries that have concluded BITs with China will face a further reduction of their legal and regulatory autonomy, which is already limited by treaties with developed countries. China's BIT policy, therefore, contradicts the widespread rhetoric of a mutual beneficial South-South cooperation. Lastly, the emerging complementarity of investment policies between China and developed countries at the bilateral level gives rise to the possibility of enhanced cooperation between both at higher levels, for instance as part of the Heiligendamm Process between G8 countries and emerging countries.

In a recent ruling, the Singapore High Court (SGHC) decided to set aside an arbitration award on the basis that the China-Laos bilateral investment treaty does not apply to Macao, a special administrative region of China. This ruling raises a number of interesting issues for the territorial application of investment treaties in general and Chinese investment treaties in particular. Moreover, this ruling is important inasmuch some might urge to proclaim it conclusive for the inapplicability of Chinese investment treaties to both Hong Kong and Macao. Within this context, this article finds that the SGHC overlooked the temporal effect of subsequent agreements to concluded investor-state arbitrations, and on the same time did not adequately explain the effect of devolution agreements on third parties and the impact of the ever expanding parallelism of China's investment 'treatification'. In addition, treaty practice on the territorial extension of investment treaties is likely not supportive of the SGHC's findings, although an analogy with succession and secession cases may suggest otherwise. On balance, this article finds that state practice on the territorial application of investment treaties, along with the circumstances inherent to the case in hand, suggests that the application of Chinese investment treaties to Hong Kong and Macao is still not conclusively determined, even after the ruling of the SGHC.

This book provides an original and critical analysis of the most contentious subjects being negotiated in the China–EU Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI). It focuses on the pathway of reforming investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) from both Chinese and European perspectives in the context of the China–EU CAI and beyond. The book is divided into three parts. Part I examines key and controversial issues of the China–EU CAI negotiations, including market access, sustainable development and human rights, as well as comparing distinct features between the China–EU CAI and the China–US BIT. Part II concentrates on the institutional reform of investor-state arbitration with an extensive analysis of the EU’s approach to replacing the private nature of investment arbitration with the public nature of an investment court. Part III addresses the core substantive and procedural issues concerning ISDS, such as the role of domestic courts in investment dispute settlement, the status of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) as investors, transparency and the protection of victims in investment dispute resolution. This book will be of interest to scholars and practitioners in the field of international investment and trade law, particularly investment dispute settlement.

EU investment in China has increased dramatically since the early 1990s and is poised to increase further in light of Chinas recent accession to the World Trade Organisation. This book explores and critically appraises the existing legal framework governing EU-China investment relations,particularly EU investment in China. The current legal framework is composed of Chinese law, EU law and applicable international law, but the Chinese law is unsystematic and hard to discover and the EU has acquired only shared external investment competence which is vaguely defined. The applicable international treaties are incomplete, incoherent, or either too general or too specialised. Besides this, the international fora to settle investment disputes are still not readily available. Furthermore while law has played a very important role in decision-making by EU investors, the Chinese legal system is generally perceived as ineffective and lacking in effective enforcement of court and arbitration decisions. What the book demonstrates is that the time is ripe for a new international legal framework for foreign investment in China, and that as EU-China economic and political relations continue to improve, construction of such a framework is not only necessary, but also possible.

This volume examines China's approaches to international trade law, investment law, financial law, competition law, and intellectual property.