CAREC officials build dispute settlement and negotiation skills for CARTIF

CARTIF Chief Negotiators, focal points and country experts from participating CAREC countries met at ADB Headquarters in Manila on 3 November 2026 for a workshop on alternative dispute settlement. The CAREC Secretariat organized it with the Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI) to give negotiators practical tools for the ongoing CARTIF talks and for implementing the agreement later. ADB Director General Lea Gutierrez and ADBI Deputy Dean Byung-Sik Jeong opened the session, saying that credible dispute settlement mechanisms build trust between countries and make regional commitments more predictable to carry out.

Through exercises and expert-led discussions, participants worked on state-to-state negotiation and mediation, interest-based negotiation, consensus-building, and handling disputes in multilateral settings. The workshop also drew on ASEAN’s experience with regional economic integration to identify lessons for designing CARTIF’s institutional and dispute settlement arrangements. Participating countries came away with a shared understanding of these issues as they work toward a regional trade and investment framework that can be put into practice.