AIELN is an international non-partisan, non-profit and non- -governmental organization with the following objectives:

a. To promote, research, education and practice of international economic law by serving as a center of activities among scholars, practitioners, governments and international organizations focusing international economic law in Asia and elsewhere;

b. To foster and encourage Asian perspectives of international economic law; and

c. To promote public awareness of international economic law in Asia.

d. To improve the capacity of international economic law in Asia.

To these ends, the functions of AIELN include organizing conferences, regional and subregional seminars, workshops and other meetings; undertaking publication for AIELN, including the proceedings of the conference organized by AIELN; and collecting and disseminating information relating to research and educational activities and other developments relevant to Asia in the field of international economic law.

AIELN is one of the regional groupings of SIEL. After its inaugural conference in July 2008, SIEL Executive Council started encouraging its members to establish regional groupings for the following reasons;

a. As a global society, SIEL has a worldwide membership coverage. Regional grouping will help SIEL achieve its objectives through firm network of IEL scholars and practitioners of each region.

b. A startling regional gap exists in the academic and educational level of IEL. While North America and Europe are advanced, the other regions are far left behind. As a global society, the prime task of SIEL is to fill the gap by encouraging regional groupings outside North America and Europe.

To respond to the call from SIEL Executive Council, Asian members of SIEL decided to establish AIELN. Asia has both rapidly growing economies and a number of underdeveloped economies needing support from IEL scholars and practitioners. AIELN will wholeheartedly work on the achievement of its objectives in collaboration with SIEL.