Introduction: The EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment and a Thorny Path Towards Investment Liberalisation

The negotiations on the EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) were launched by the parties in 2014 and concluded in principle on 30 December 2020, after thirty-five rounds of negotiations. Despite the current stalemate in in the conclusion and ratification of the CAI, its importance cannot be underestimated, as it is the first bilateral investment treaty between the two major economic powerhouses and international norm entrepreneurs. The scholarly assessment of the CAI is organized along the following three themes, which correspond to the respective parts of this volume: (1) strategic objectives and negotiating positions of the parties; (2) substantive provisions of the CAI on investment liberalisation; (3) dispute resolution methods available to the parties under the CAI. Drawing upon the insights on investment liberalisation elaborated in the individual chapters, this book contributes to the understanding of the CAI as an example of international rule-making aimed at addressing investment-related issues in bilateral economic relations and setting the precedent for multilateral instruments.