The reform of Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) is a subject of ongoing debate in international institutions, yet an ASEAN perspective on the subject has been largely absent to date. This book addresses that gap by presenting, analysing and assessing ISDS reform from an ASEAN perspective, taking into account the experience, needs and concerns of ASEAN as a community and of its member states. The book provides a consolidated summary of the range of ISDS reform proposals that have been put forward internationally, alongside a systematic overview of the ISDS provisions of over 300 international investment agreements concluded by ASEAN and its member states. Combining this information, the authors critically analyse the content, structure and modalities of reform proposals from an ASEAN standpoint, including their ability to address reform concerns particular to ASEAN member states. Chapters explore a wide range of topics, covering the rationale, modalities and concerns involved in ISDS reform. The book will be of interest to academics and graduate students in the fields of international investment law and ASEAN law and policy. It will also be of relevance to policy-makers in ASEAN, and more broadly, to practitioners and arbitrators who are interested in ISDS reform.

Coherence is highly valued in law. It is especially sought after in investor-state dispute settlement, where charges of incoherence in arbitral awards have long been raised by states and scholars. Yet coherence is a largely underexplored notion in international law. Often, it is treated as a mere ideal to strive towards or simply as a different way to describe the legal consistency of judicial outcomes. This book takes a different approach. It sees coherence as an independent concept having two dimensions: a substantive and a methodological one. Both are critically important for legal reasoning by international courts and tribunals, including by investor-state tribunals, and the book illustrates through several case studies some of the ways this conclusion is borne out in practice. A fuller understanding of coherence in international law has implications for our understanding of the concept of law, the practice of legal reasoning, and judicial professional ethics.