Author(s)

Mei Yang ¹

Affiliation(s)

¹ School of Law, Guilin University of Electronic Technology, Guilin, 541000, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China

Corresponding Author

Mei Yang

ABSTRACT

Against the backdrop of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area 3.0, the investment dispute settlement mechanism under CAFTA 3.0 faces multiple practical challenges: at the regional level, the ambiguous hierarchy of application under the RCEP and the diverging stances of ASEAN member states complicate efforts to harmonize rules; at the level of the rules themselves, the ISDS mechanism—which has not undergone substantive revisions—struggles to address the specific requirements of new chapters such as those on the digital economy and the green economy. Resolving these challenges requires a dual-pronged approach: Externally, CAFTA 3.0 should serve as a "regulatory anchor" to coordinate its relationship with RCEP; Internally, specialized procedures should be established in different sectors to address the new chapters—such as involving technical experts in the digital economy and establishing a "climate change exception" mechanism in the green economy—to facilitate a paradigm shift in the ISDS mechanism from a "generic tool" to a "sector-specific toolkit," thereby providing institutional safeguards for optimizing the regional investment environment and advancing economic integration.

KEYWORDS

CAFTA 3.0; Investor-State Dispute Settlement Mechanism; ISDS Reform

CITE THIS PAPER

Mei Yang. A Study on the Upgrade of the Investment Dispute Settlement Mechanism in the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area 3.0. Science of Law Journal (2026). Vol. 5, No.1, 76-80. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/DOI: 10.23977/law.2026.050111.

REFERENCES

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