RTA Investment Dispute Settlement Mechanism

RTA namely Regional Trade Agreement (Regional Trade arrangements), refers to arrangement of reaching preferential agreement for trade or related economic cooperation between two or among more than two members. Its most important function is the tariff preferential policies between members. Regional trade arrangements rising in the context of the global rapidly, on the one hand, is due to the rapid development of global economic integration, on the other hand, is due to the developing countries lost confidence after Uruguay round negotiations because of the congenital defects of the WTO multilateral trading system which makes a large number of developing countries to seek regional cooperation, use the RTA tariff and non-tariff special preferential arrangements to promote mutual service and trade or sort of scale of the expansion so as to realize a win-win situation. Subsequently, countries all over the world in order to promote and protect the development of international investment would propel investment liberalization and facilitation and standardization, and then, set and signed all levels of investment treaties and agreements. At present the main Investment agreements between countries have the BIT (Bilateral Investment Treaty) Bilateral Investment Protection Agreement), RTA (Regional Trade Agreements, the Investment of agreement) and other major types. Along with constantly deepening and development of international investment activities, the definition of "investment","national treatment" and "the most-favored-nation treatment" provisions, as well as "collection" and "compensation" or sort of important regulations to promote international investment liberalization facilitation has been improved. The investment dispute settlement system is highly focused on by investors formed different system in developing countries and developed countries because it’s often require with specific cases to analysis, related to the host country’s sovereignty and the need to balance the ruling the interests of all parties. At the same time, the perfection and scientific standardizing of settlement mechanism of investment dispute is to determine whether investment agreement is effective as prediction, and which is the key point to realize win-win of investment both sides. Generally speaking, an investment dispute settlement system with reasonable construct, good consideration to host countries and psychological expectation of investors and ability to take effective solutions is the implementation of the investment agreement effective guarantee. At present, general settlement systems of investment dispute on international basis mainly are ICSID (the International Center for the Settlement of Investment disputes) arbitration system, multilateral investment Guarantee Agency MIGA (Multinational INVESTMENT Guarantee Agency) system and dispute settlement mechanism established by WTO. Among them, ICSID which was established in1965plays a pivotal role in the mechanism. Many RTA and BIT investment dispute settlement agreement stipulated that the ICSID mechanism can be used to solve the dispute.The innovation of this paper is to make research of the ICSID arbitration rules by contrast of the cases, so as to get a thorough understanding of RTA dispute settlement mechanism, with exception of comparative study for the investment dispute resolution mechanism applying to the current major economies. The last and most important point, it is to present proper evaluation for the FTA and RTA investment dispute settlement mechanism our country participates now. and it could improve the scientific structure to accord with China’s national conditions and in line with the requirement of foreign trade development, could realize the mutually beneficial and win-win investment dispute settlement mechanism.This paper will be divided into four chapters. The first chapter defines the meaning of investment dispute resolution mechanism, analyzes the type of investment of the dispute settlement mechanism, and expounds RTA investment dispute settlement mechanism and the advanced nature relative to international investment dispute settlement mechanism. The second chapter is comparison of ICSID and regional trade and investment dispute settlement mechanism through some important rules, such as the definition of "investment","jurisdiction", and the applicable law of different specification. The third deeply understands the link between RTA and ICSID by analysis through the famous case arbitrated by ICSID. Chapter4is to present the shortcomings of the FTA current situation we participated right now, analyze, and propose the countermeasures on the basis of successful experience of RTA investment of the dispute settlement mechanism.In2012, total foreign direct investment of our country is up to$220billion accumulatively, turnover of international engineering contracting and labor service cooperation$335.2billion. During these10years after accession to the world trade organization China took an active part in the regional economic cooperation mechanisms, external development is moving forward frequently broader and deeper. At the same time, the foreign trade investment disputes friction is growing and reasonably solving investment disputes and protecting investment interests are increasingly serious, so strengthening construction investment dispute settlement mechanism in the area of trade has become a hot spot the theory research. And this is the theme of this paper. The author hope to find the suitable pathway for settlement of China’s foreign trade investment dispute through comparison between regional trade investment dispute settlement mechanism and ICSID mechanism.