ASEAN's Rubicon: A Dispute Settlement Mechanism for AFTA

Abstract

ARTICLES ASEAN'S RUBICON: A DISPUTE SETTLEMENT MECHANISM FOR AFTA Jeffrey A. Kaplant INTRODUCTION As international trade has stepped to the forefront of inter- national relations, Asia has emerged as a point of convergence. In particular, East Asia's economic dynamism has fixed the world's attention on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations ( ASEAN ).' At the same time, the completion of both the Uruguay Round on the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade ( GATT ) and the North American Free Trade Agreement ( NAFTA ), 2 coupled with the progress of the Asia Pacific Eco- nomic Cooperation ( APEC ), have drawn ASEAN into the free trade arena. 3 ASEAN's efforts in this area-most notably the ASEAN Free 4 Trade Area ( AFTA ) and its subregional growth triangles -have received international notice. t J.D. from Harvard Law School. This article derives in large part from re- search conducted while the author was a 1994-95 Fulbright Scholar in Malaysia. The author currently serves as project manager for a United Nations Development Pro- gramme project assisting the Royal Government of Cambodia in its preparations to join ASEAN. The author would like to thank Michelle Brandt, Professor Matthew Schaefer at the University of Nebraska College of Law and the Universiti Malaya Law Faculty for their generous support, patience and input into this article. Any errors that this article may contain are solely the responsibility of the author. 1. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations ( ASEAN ) is comprised of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei and Vietnam. 2. North American Free Trade Agreement, done Dec. 17, 1992, Can.-Mex.- U.S., 32 I.L.M. 296 and 32 I.L.M. 605 [hereinafter NAFrA]. 3. The rise of regionalism plainly motivated ASEAN, which feared a deterio- ration in its competitive trade posture, to focus on establishing its own regional eco- nomic initiatives. See Frank B. Gibney, Creating a Pacific Community: A Time to Bolster Economic Institutions, FOREIGN Arr., Nov.-Dec. 1993, at 22. 4. Following the lead of the informal subregional economic zone linking south- ern China with Hong Kong and Taiwan, members of ASEAN have created three subregional groupings, commonly called growth triangles, to promote economic