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19 AsJCL 1 (2024)

handle is hein.journals/asjcoml19 and id is 1 raw text is: Asian Journal of Comparative Law (2024), 19, 1-21 ASIAN CM1 B R I DGE doi:10.1017/asjcl.2024.1 COMPARATIVE LAW I R I IE Mark McLaughlin Singapore Management University, Singapore, Singapore Email: mmclaughlin@smu.edu.sg (Received 7 February 2022; revised 8 August 2022; accepted 20 March 2023; first published online 22 February 2024) Abstract This article argues that China's loreign investor complaints system constitutes 'state-centric investment medi- ation'. The Riles on Handling Complaints oforeign-Invested Elterprises, which entered into force on 1 October 2020, place a state agency in the position of facilitating negotiations between a foreign investor and the agency being complained against. The prospects fo>r this complaints system depend on how the state-as-mediator dynamic is perceived by loreign investors. To this end, it will be argued that settlement agreements reached pursuant to this system may be enforceable under the Singapore Convention on Medialion in certain circumstances. Investors and government entities operating similar systems worldwide should be cognisant of the broad drafting terminology of the Singapore Convention. Moreover, it is proposed that lurither clarilication of the procedural rules and the inclusion of China's loreign-related dispute reso- lution institutions may enhance investor confidence and encourage use of the complaints system. In assigning responsibility for internationally wrongful acts, public international law recognises only the state.' This fictional state is comprised of several state organs or individuals exercising govern- mental authority, from local administrators to supreme court judges.2 Every such entity can trigger a breach of an international treaty, as their behaviour is the state's behaviour. And for all such dis- putes, the dominant dispute resolution process has been investor-state arbitration. In specific contexts, however, this abstraction may obscure a more complex factual and legal reality. The shifting sands of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS), for example, reflect an increasing accept- ance that the fictional unitary state obscures the potential for settlement. In practice, states and disputes are more nuanced. Recent reforms to the legal frameworks of ISDS are attuned to this reality, and reori- ent norms and institutions towards managing disputes with foreign investors. No more so is this the *Global Visiting Assistant Professor, Singapore International Dispute Resolution Academy (SIDRA), Singapore Management University. The author acknowledges and is grateful for the support of SIDRA's Belt and Road Initiative programme in the develop- ment of this article. 'International Law Commission, Draft Articles on the Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts with Commentaries, Supplement No 10, ch IV.E.1, UN Doc A/56/10 (Nov 2001) (hereinafter 'ARSIWA'). 2ARSIWA, art 4 provides that '[t]he conduct of any State organ shall be considered an act of that State under international law, whether the organ exercises legislative, executive, judicial or any other functions, whatever position it holds in the organ- ization of the State, and whatever its character as an organ of the central Government or of a territorial unit of the State'. *The original version of this article was published with preliminary versions of Figures 1 and 2. A notice detailing this has been published and the errors rectified in the online and print PDF and HTML copies. © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the National University of Singapore. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which per- mits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.