Hew Min Min

International trade regulations are often perceived with the labels of security and stability. World Trade Organization (WTO) being the main organization in this globe to regulate and facilitate affairs of international trade has established a stable system for its member states to deal with trades being done between them. Malaysia and China are both member states of the WTO, and these two countries had a long history of trade relationship to date, and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) would signify as the latest proof of the business relationship between China and Malaysia Through years of progress, Malaysia has become an important partner of China in Belt and Road cooperation and has achieved fruitful results in economic and trade cooperation. Even though the BRI is still rapidly developing till today, looking at this initiative on the legal side, actually there is no law ever enacted in line to handle legal issues born from the initiative specifically, which there are two reasons contributing to such matter generally, namely BRI’s lack of basis in public international law and the difference in legal systems of BRI participating countries. As such, this doctrinal study will use a qualitative method to look into the legal issues of BRI through three aspects, namely: (i) institutional issues; (ii) dispute resolution; and (iii) criminal issues, beside discussing the impact of BRI towards Malaysia from an economic perspective.