A New Dish of “CAI” for State-to-State Dispute Settlement in the EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment

A new treaty dish of Cai (literally “cuisine”) concerning investment access and protection was prepared by the European Union (EU) and China at the end of 2020. The EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) contain a settlement section for resolving disputes arising between the EU and China, which also includes a chapter on the State-to-State Dispute Settlement (SSDS). SSDS in CAI establishes a comprehensive and step-by-step arbitration mechanism for resolving disputes between the Parties compared with other investment treaties signed between China and EU member states. This chapter is an exhaustive study on the SSDS in the CAI. It argues that SSDS designed with political expectations shows joint effort from both the EU and China towards a reformative mechanism to resolve disputes arising from the investment treaty.