This book focuses on the Asia-Pacific region, delineating the evolving dynamics of foreign investment in the region. It examines the relationship between efforts to increase foreign direct investment (FDI) and efforts to improve governance and inclusive growth and development. Against a background of rapidly developing international investment law, it emphasises the need to strike a balance between these domestic and international legal frameworks, seeking to promote both foreign investment and the laws and policies necessary to regulate investments and investor conduct. Foreign investments play a pivotal role in most countries' political economies, and in order to encourage cross-border capital flows, countries have taken various steps, such as revising their domestic legal frameworks, liberalising rules on inward and outward investment, and creating special regimes that provide incentives and protections for foreign investment. Alongside the developments in domestic laws, countries have also taken bilateral and multilateral action, including entering into trade and/or investment agreements. Further, the book explores regional investment trends, highlights specific features of Asia-Pacific investment laws and treaties, and analyses policy implications. It addresses four overarching themes: the trends (how Asia-Pacific's agreements compare with recent global trends in the evolving rules on foreign investment); what China is doing; current investment arbitration practice in Asia; and the importance of regionalising investment law in the Asia-Pacific region. In addition, it identifies and discusses the research and policy gaps that should be filled in order to promote more sustainable and responsible investment. The book offers a valuable resource not only for academics and students, but also for trade and investment officials, policy-makers, diplomats, economists, lawyers, think tanks, and business leaders interested in the governance and regulation of foreign investment, economic policy reforms, and the development of new types of investment agreements.

This book examines, through the interdisciplinary lenses of international relations and law, the limitations of cybersecurity governance frameworks and proposes solutions to address new cybersecurity challenges. It approaches different angles of cybersecurity regulation, showing the importance of dichotomies as state vs market, public vs private, and international vs domestic. It critically analyses two dominant Internet regulation models, labelled as market-oriented and state-oriented. It pays particular attention to the role of private actors in cyber governance and contrasts the different motivations and modus operandi of different actors and states, including in the domains of public-private partnerships, international data transfers, regulation of international trade and foreign direct investments. The book also examines key global (within the United Nations) and regional efforts to regulate cybersecurity and explains the limits of domestic and international law in tackling cyberattacks. Finally, it demonstrates how geopolitical considerations and different approaches to human rights shape cybersecurity governance.

This book explores the potential of the current investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism to materialise the responsibility of foreign investors through the states' counterclaims and defences at the jurisdictional, merits, and quantum phases. In doing so, it seeks to incorporate the recent developments of ISDS in both international and domestic laws of certain jurisdictions on corporate responsibility, including the parent company's due diligence and legal effects of corporations' voluntary commitments. The book also reflects the interests and perspectives of the victims who suffered loss and injury due to investors' conduct. The author demonstrates that the current system does have the inherent potential to advance responsible investment, even though reforms are needed to overcome its limitations. Fully utilising this potential to reflect investor responsibility in IIA-based dispute settlement mechanisms will help to develop practices based on greater due diligence and responsible business conduct.

This book focuses on the Asia-Pacific region, delineating the evolving dynamics of foreign investment in the region. It examines the relationship between efforts to increase foreign direct investment (FDI) and efforts to improve governance and inclusive growth and development. Against a background of rapidly developing international investment law, it emphasises the need to strike a balance between these domestic and international legal frameworks, seeking to promote both foreign investment and the laws and policies necessary to regulate investments and investor conduct. Foreign investments play a pivotal role in most countries' political economies, and in order to encourage cross-border capital flows, countries have taken various steps, such as revising their domestic legal frameworks, liberalising rules on inward and outward investment, and creating special regimes that provide incentives and protections for foreign investment. Alongside the developments in domestic laws, countries have also taken bilateral and multilateral action, including entering into trade and/or investment agreements. Further, the book explores regional investment trends, highlights specific features of Asia-Pacific investment laws and treaties, and analyses policy implications. It addresses four overarching themes: the trends (how Asia-Pacific's agreements compare with recent global trends in the evolving rules on foreign investment); what China is doing; current investment arbitration practice in Asia; and the importance of regionalising investment law in the Asia-Pacific region. In addition, it identifies and discusses the research and policy gaps that should be filled in order to promote more sustainable and responsible investment. The book offers a valuable resource not only for academics and students, but also for trade and investment officials, policy-makers, diplomats, economists, lawyers, think tanks, and business leaders interested in the governance and regulation of foreign investment, economic policy reforms, and the development of new types of investment agreements.