There is an urgent need to mainstream the key challenges of climate change into sector and development planning and decision making processes to create sustainable long-term development. Mainstreaming is seen as making more efficient and effective use of financial and human resources. It is...

It is logical to argue that growth led by low-carbon goods and services (LCGS) is an imperative for the countries of Asia and the Pacific, and particularly for emerging Asian economies, which are heavily dependent on imported energy and resources. Acknowledging this fact, individual governments...

In May 2013 the ASEAN+6 countries began to negotiate the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). The objective of this paper is to analyze the feasibility of constructing such a region-wide agreement and to examine ways to multilateralize it. The paper first reviews free trade...

The Asian financial crisis (1997–1998) and the global financial crisis (2007–2009) highlighted the potential value of financial regionalism, i.e., regional-level cooperation in financial policy. This paper argues that there is a mediating role for regional-level institutions of...

With closer regional integration there is increasing interest within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and on the part of ASEAN’s dialogue partners in the potential gains of closer connections between Southeast Asia and South Asia. The strategic positions of India,...

This paper discusses how financial crises in emerging Asia and Japan worked as catalysts for legal reforms. The responses of six Asian countries with different legal histories to financial crises that posed similar challenges are of both legal and economic interest. We first provide a...

Serious efforts at economic integration among the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) members started only in 1992. Initial obstacles included the widespread pursuit of import substitution policies of industrialization, the small extent of intra-ASEAN trade, and the wide differences...

This study investigates how the patterns of productivity growth have changed over the past few decades for the Asian economies in comparison with the advanced economies. The findings indicate that the Asian economies are in the process of transition in terms of pattern of growth. It seems that...

Looking back at the history of the World Trade Organization (WTO), major accords that have been reached under the multilateral framework to date are in substance issue-based “plurilateral†agreements. This paper looks at some specific examples of issue-based plurilateral...

This paper analyzes the current status of fisheries and aquaculture in Southeast Asia and international trade. Analysis concludes that a policy of sustainable management for both capture fisheries and aquaculture is of greatest importance, but such a policy has been neither planned nor...