The impending British exit (Brexit) from the European Union has placed the UK’s investment policy at a crossroads. A post-Brexit UK will now have to reorganise its investment relationships with its economic partners through bespoke UK IIAs. This exercise will have to accommodate the shifting zeitgeist concerning the balance of investors’ rights and the right to regulate IIAs that is expected. This paper examines the continued relevance of the recently minted Investment Protection Chapter in the EU-Singapore Free Trade Agreement, acknowledged by Britain’s power brokers, as a persuasive model for the UK to emulate for this purpose. This is notwithstanding the uncertainties that now surround the implementation and efficacy of the Agreement in light of Brexit and a pending decision from the Court of Justice of the European Union. Such emulation would ultimately make for a better Investor-State Dispute Settlement System in the UK IIAs by providing a much needed update to its old investment treaty architecture.
In a referendum on June 23, 2016: 51.9 percent of the British electorate voted in favor of the UK’s withdrawal (Brexit) from the EU. The reasons are varied, and many were surprised by such ‘unintended consequences.’ However, Britain is setting a new global strategy to escape the regionalism of integrated Europe by choosing traditional ‘splendid isolation.’ Nonetheless, Britain could not immediately leave the EU; it must first conclude a withdrawal agreement in accordance with the procedure in Article 50 of the Treaty on the European Union. In this process, strong opposition within British society will pose great challenges, accompanying numerous other barriers to overcome. Following the Supreme Court ruling on January 24, 2017, the UK government recently completed the required parliamentary approval process before initiating Brexit negotiations with the EU. This paper concludes that Britain is indeed coupable of opting to return to nationalism based on sovereignty rather than peace, coexistence, and solidarity in Europe.
Brexit represents a backlash against globalization and runs in parallel with Donald Trump’s presidential election. Both of these signal the rise of the nation-state and the rejection of the neoliberal vision of globalization in which national sovereignty has been increasingly dissolved. The article argues that it also has fundamental implications for Asia. In particular, China as the world’s second largest economy is playing a bigger role in the region. Furthermore, with the rise of China, Asia’s global order has become relatively fragile and multilayered in the sense that all big powers, such as the US and Japan, have their relative positions in the region simultaneously. In this regard, it would be more realistic for Asian countries to base their integration on their national sovereignty in a pragmatic way that they can maintain flexibility to the changing order of the world.
New national security (NNS) represents a twenty-first century’s sociological paradigm on which the law is based on and is characterized by multiple actors, wide covering, low predictability, subjective perception, dual nature, and rampant diffusion. The emergence and expansion of the NNS prompts a highly advanced perspective to the rule of law at both the national and international levels, specifically, the relationship between international and domestic law. In this context, traditional approaches, ‘international approach’ or ‘national approach,’ are insufficient, so that a new ‘managerial approach’ is thus needed. The legal practice in relation to national security of China, a rising great power, attracts close attention in the international society. Furthermore, since Chinese conception of national security has its own ‘Chinese characteristics,’ how China will enforce its national security law in the context of international law remains to be seen. The NNS will lead profound sociological transformation upon which all legal orders are based.
ASEAN’s goal of establishing a single shipping market is consistent with its desire to create a highly integrated, connected and competitive region in which cross-border, intra-ASEAN establishment and provision of shipping services is permitted. However, the measures currently being mapped out for achieving the single shipping market have not included liberalizing cabotage. This article argues that abolishing cabotage by removing the prohibition on the ASEAN ship-owners to engage in each other’s domestic shipping is a necessary requirement to fully achieve a single shipping market. It discusses the cabotage regimes in the four ASEAN States, namely Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand. It highlights the vessel registration, licensing and manning requirements of each State. Further, the article discusses the regulatory provisions that exclude foreign ship-owners from domestic shipping and the scope of the exemptions from cabotage. Finally, it makes recommendations on how the disparate regulatory provisions can be harmonized through the adoption of an ASEAN agreement on cabotage.
On December 31, 2015, the ASEAN Economic Community had officially been launched. The direct impact of this policy will be on the field of Competition Law which differs from one country to another. The Competition Law plays an important role in ensuring fair and equitable business practices within the ASEAN. The ASEAN has its Regional Guidelines on Competition Policy to assist its member countries to increase their awareness about fair and equitable business practices. This policy only serves as a guideline and has not been adopted as an enforceable rule. Therefore, the business competition in the domestic market involving the ASEAN member’s company is still being regulated by each ASEAN member country. This paper examines and analyzes the role of the competition law in addressing the intra- ASEAN members’ unfair business practices and the needs for the harmonization of the competition law within the ASEAN Countries as a transition to promulgate the ASEAN Competition Law.
This article aims to introduce and critically analyze the jurisprudence and its application in the UPP case in South Korea with reference to the ECtHR case law. In this controversial case, the CCK decided to dissolve the UPP and, without any basis in positive law, disqualify five National Assembly members affiliated with it. It is argued that when the CCK attempted to articulate the principle of proportionality that the ECtHR case law has firmly developed in this field and to apply it to this case, standards governing the dissolution of political parties were distorted at least in two ways. First, it substituted ‘social need’ for “pressing social need.” Second, it deliberately omitted the requirement of ‘sufficient imminence.’ In addition, the reasoning of the majority of eight justices based upon the rule of evidence in civil proceedings can also be criticized for being too abrupt to be justified in this highly controversial case of constitutional importance.
The Treaty on Basic Relations between the Republic of Korea and Japan was signed as a result of Korea-Japan talks from October 1951 to June 1965. Article 2 of the Korea- Japan Basic Treaty stipulates the so-called “Article Related to the Former Treaties and Agreements.” A compromise was adopted with the term, “already null and void.” As regards this expression, Japan asserts that the period of Japanese occupation was once valid, while Korea maintains that it has been “fundamentally null and void.” So, the meaning does not change even if ‘already’ is inserted in the beginning. Korean cultural properties taken away to Japan during the period of Japanese occupation should all be returned to Korea, but Japan evaded the expression, ‘return’ until Korea referred to the term, ‘turn over’ as an intermediate expression between ‘return’ and ‘donation.’ The author believes that the more both sides mutually communicate with each other for universal value, the earlier they arrive at the final resolution for these issues under international law and justice.
During the Japanese Occupation of China (1931-45), countless Chinese cultural relics were simply destroyed or looted in accordance with Japan’s notorious ‘Three Alls Campaign,’ also known as ‘Burn all, loot all, and kill all’. Due to the 1972 Japan-Chian Joint Communiqué, however, the Chinese Government renounced its demand for war reparation from Japan. The question then becomes whether, when the Chinese Government renounced its claims for war reparations in a peace treaty. Chinese individuals still have a means to vindicate their rights to request restitution of Chinese cultural relics from Japan. The primary purpose of this research is to tackle two questions: First, was the taking of Chinese cultural relics during the Japanese Occupation prohibited by law? Second, can the Chinese individuals legally require the restitution of looted cultural relics? This paper handles a case of a 1300-year’s old Tang dynasty stele in Japan which has been asked to hand over to China since 2014.
This article focuses on the Korean claim for repatriation of cultural property currently located in Japan. Through an analysis of the relevant rules of international law, it demonstrates the established norm that the predecessor state is not obliged to repatriate the cultural property acquired in and exported from the annexed territory. It further shows that, even if Japan had not annexed the Empire of Korea and just occupied it, the repatriationists’ claim would not hold water, as the question has been conclusively settled by a bilateral agreement between Japan and the Republic of Korea. Considering that the parties to a settlement should refrain from subsequently relitigating the matter, the author concludes that cultural property, which can be a powerful ambassador for promoting mutual understanding, should be dealt with in the framework of forward-looking cooperation, including mutual loans and possibly the creation of a multinational museum.
Every September and October, entities in the palm oil and timber industries in Indonesia conduct slash-and-burn activities over peat land, causing transboundary ‘haze’ pollution. This paper analyzes the effectiveness of various legal solutions to tackle the transboundary haze pollution. There are mainly three forms of international law, customary international law, the ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze 2002 and Singapore’s extraterritorial Transboundary Haze Pollution Act 2014. Their effectiveness will be measured by Indonesia’s increasing willingness to take domestic enforcement measures. This paper argues that the ASEAN Agreement is the primary instrument despite its lack of sanctions as it is neutral, non-confrontational and consistent with the ‘ASEAN way.’ The Singapore Act plays a complementary role, yet its invocation may strain relations between Singapore and Indonesia. Ultimately, the three forms of international law serve as a normative and facilitative source in nudging Indonesia to take more stringent domestic enforcement measures.
This note assesses the implications of the D.C. Circuit Court case of Han Kim v. Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, in which the court found the North Korean state responsible for the torture and unlawful killing of Kim Dong Shik, a South Korean missionary who was abducted by the North Korean government while in China. In particular, this note shows how the judgment breaks new ground by holding a state responsible for torture and unlawful killing based solely on general evidence of that country’s human rights practices, without additional information about the fate of the victim himself. This note also discusses this case’s implications for the plaintiffs themselves, and for other victims of North Korean human rights abuses.
The “Sipadan and Ligitan” dispute was settled by the ICJ (2002), but its impact on basepoint for baseline and maritime delimitation on the Ambalat remains a contentious issue until now. Since the islands are used as basepoints by Malaysia that results in controversy between Indonesia and Malaysia. This essay will investigate the current situation over Ambalat regarding two basepoints islands for maintaining Equidistance Line in Disputed Area. It will discuss why Malaysia has no right to use the straight baseline or straight archipelagic baseline to connect the basepoints of Sipadan and Ligitan at Sabah and suggest measures to maintain equidistance line in Ambalat.