Suchergebnisse

Toxic 'haze' from fires, often burning over dry peatland in Indonesia, has affected millions across Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia, as well as parts of the Philippines and Thailand. For Singapore in particular, this slash-and-burn method of clearing land in Indonesia to cultivate crops such as oil palm has been an annual problem since 1972. However, 2015 stands out as the year Singapore experienced one of its worst episodes of haze pollution. Air quality based on the Pollutant Standards Index (PSI) plummeted to the 'very unhealthy' and 'hazardous ranges' for close to 50 days. Singapore suffered an estimated SGD $700 million in economic losses in 2015 as a result of, inter alia, the closure of schools, hotels, tourist attractions and major sporting events. Moreover, the large quantities of carbon dioxide released set back Southeast Asia's efforts to mitigate climate change. A scientific study has shown that the 2015 fires in Indonesia released nearly one gigaton of greenhouse gases. Daily emissions during that haze period were even higher than that of all the European Union member states put together.

This digest examines the intersection between the act of State doctrine, and the power of Singapore courts under Singapore's International Arbitration Act ("IAA") to grant interim relief. It is well settled that this private international law doctrine can be applied by courts at common law when they examine purported sovereign acts of a foreign government to decide on whether they ought to assume or decline jurisdiction.

On 5 January, Myanmar's parliament enacted the Arbitration Law 2016 – Union Parliament Act No. 5 of 2016 – which repeals and replaces the Myanmar Arbitration Act 1944 and represents an important step forward in creating a legal environment that is attractive for investment and commerce.

This commentary discusses the first Singapore court decision to have interpreted a BIT to which Singapore is not a party. The case concerns a dispute between the Laos People's Democratic Republic ("Laos") and Sanum Investments Limited ("Sanum"), a company in corporated in Macau. The Court had to determine whether a bilateral investment treaty ("BIT") between Laos and the People's Republic of China (the "PRC-Laos BIT") extended to Macau, which was handed over to China after the conclusion of the treaty. The Court concluded that neither the PRC nor Laos had intended for the treaty to apply to Macau. Further, the Court held that Sanum's expropriation claims against the Laotian government fell outside the scope of the treaty. The decision turned on the relevant canons of treaty interpretation in light of the context within which the PRC-Laos BIT was drafted and subsequent agreements.

This collection critically discusses the increasing significance of Asian States in the field of international investment law and policy. Consisting of contributions authored by a leading team of scholars and practitioners of international investment law, this volume contains analyses of both national and multilateral investment law rule-making in Asia, including a critical discussion of certain States' approaches to balancing the different tension between investment protection and the preservation of States' regulatory sovereignty. It also contains thematic chapters on cutting-edge developments which are of relevance to Asia as well as the global community, such as investors' obligations of due diligence, additional transparency in treaty-based investment arbitration responses by ASEAN member States to transboundary haze pollution, and the relevance of human rights obligations in international investment law. It also contemplates future possibilities for investor-State dispute settlement, including the use of investor-State mediation in view of the Singapore Convention on Mediation.

1. Whither corporate social responsibility and the UN guiding principles on business and human rights in ASEAN? / Thomas Thomas -- 2. Business and human rights challenges in ASEAN : the role and modalities of the state / Delphia Lim and Geetanjali Mukherjee -- 3. Why gender matters for the business and human rights agenda in Southeast Asia / Kathryn Dovey -- 4. Children's rights and business : a framework to combat ICT-enabled child abuse in Southeast Asia / Philip Cook, Bindu Sharma and Chris Yeomans -- 5. Regulating social and environmental risk in ASEAN financial integration : the Xayaburi dam project in Lao PDR and Thai banks / Daniel King -- 6. Corporate sustainability and palm oil industries in Southeast Asia : a principled pragmatism / Puvan Selvanathan and Vani Sathisan -- 7. Human rights risks amidst the 'gold-rush' : Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam / Mahdev Mohan -- 8. Tigers, dragons, and elephants on the move in Myanmar : the case for responsible investment and three recommendations for Asian leaders / Mark Hodge and Salil Tripathi -- 9. The new frontier : due diligence and developing and implementing human rights audits in Southeast Asia / James Kallman -- 10. Making human rights a core business practice : the finance sector's role in the promotion and protection of human rights / Kerri-Ann O'Neill -- 11. Rule-making for rights protection in the Philippines : the judiciary's new powers for environmental regulation and access to remedy for business-related rights abuses / Bobbie Sta. Maria -- 12. The reality of remedy in mining and community relations : an anonymous case-study from Southeast Asia / Deanna Kemp and John R. Owen -- 13. Right to development : a path to securing more effective remedies? / Cynthia Morel.

Business and human rights has emerged as a distinct field within the corporate governance movement. The endorsement by the United Nations Human Rights Council of a new set of Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights in 2011 reinforces the State's duty to protect against human rights abuses by third parties, including business; the corporate responsibility to respect human rights; and greater access by victims to effective remedy, both judicial and non-judicial. This book draws on the UN Guiding Principles and recent national plans of action, to provide an overview of relevant development.

The Singapore Court of Appeal's decision in Sanum Investments Ltd v Government of the Lao People's Democratic Republic was a landmark one in several respects. A key aspect of this decision though may appear controversial at first blush – that is, the apex court placed less weight on the express views of state parties, even though Singapore itself was not a party to the relevant bilateral investment treaty ("BIT"). While doing so was admittedly "counter-intuitive", the Court of Appeal did not set out to construe the BIT against the intentions of the contracting states. Rather, much turned on the critical date and nature of evidence adduced by, Laos to indicate the states' purported intentions. Put another way, when joint intentions were first expressed was significant, as were the types of evidence relied upon to evince subsequent joint intentions. This note will suggest that the Court of Appeal was animated by a desire to clarify important points of public international law and curial procedure; points which are instructive to future investor-state cases arising from the International Arbitration Act.