Defending the Undefendable: Asia’s Sovereignist Battles against Easy Access to Investment Treaty Arbitration

States from the Asian region have not been the loudest participants in the backlash against investment treaty arbitration. That does not mean that they have not reacted to an evolving arbitral practice allowing easy access of foreign investors to international arbitration. This chapter examines the action taken by several Asian states, particularly in the form of detailed treaty provisions, aimed to reassert the gateway to investment dispute settlement at the international level. It is argued that although state reaction in Asia has not been systemic and radical, but rather occasional and modest, it is based on the same sovereignist rationale, which assumes that harder conditions of access to international arbitration protect better state sovereignty. That reaction, however, will probably not produce the desired effects, because it does not follow the emergence of arbitral jurisdictional regulation, which has developed jurisdictional rules capable of tackling harder conditions of access, in light of the internationalised and depoliticised nature of investment disputes.