Built on the theme “history, culture and international law”, this special course gives a comprehensive review of China’s contemporary perspective and practice of international law in the past 60 years, with its focus on the recent 30 years when China is gradually integrated into international legal system through its opening up and economic reform process. After an in-depth revisit of China’s position on sovereignty and non-interference from a historical and cultural perspective, the author further explores a few areas of importance where China’s viewpoints often invite general interest: human rights, sustainable development, and multilateralism and regional cooperation.

China’s rise has aroused apprehension that it will revise the current rules of international order to pursue and reflect its power, and that, in its exercise of State sovereignty, it is unlikely to comply with international law. This book explores the extent to which China’s exercise of State sovereignty since the Opium War has shaped and contributed to the legitimacy and development of international law and the direction in which international legal order in its current form may proceed. It examines how international law within a normative–institutional framework has moderated China’s exercise of State sovereignty and helps mediate differences between China’s and other States’ approaches to State sovereignty, such that State sovereignty, and international law, may be better understood.

Since the Tiananmen Square incident in 1989 there has been increasing international pressure on China to improve its approach to human rights, whilst at the same time the Chinese government has itself realised that it needs to improve its approach, and has indeed done much to implement improvements. This book explores systematically the international engagement in human rights in China and assesses the impact of such foreign involvement. It looks at particular areas including criminal justice, labour, and religious freedom, considers the processes by which international pressure is brought to bear and the processes by which improvements are implemented in China, and concludes that, whilst China’s human rights record has improved more than many people realise, further improvements are still needed.

Should Chinese energy investments be excluded from the liberal economic system based on geopolitical assessments only? This book explores the potential regulatory control by the Chinese government over foreign energy investments to achieve their perceived strategic objectives. Host states in which Chinese energy companies make investments have increasingly opposed Chinese energy investments in their national security reviews, based on concerns that these investments have strategic objectives. The book analyses China's investment-related law, regulations, and energy policies to examine how overseas energy investment-making is governed. The book also explores the role of the Chinese government in energy investment promotion and protection. Uniquely, the examination of China's potential regulatory control provides an objective criterion, rather than geopolitical considerations, for host states to assess the nature of Chinese energy investments. The book helps readers to open the 'black box' of Chinese energy investments from a regulatory perspective. It is a useful resource for researchers as well as practising lawyers assisting their Chinese clients through national security reviews, or when trying to determine whether China's SOEs can bring cases before investor-state arbitration tribunals.

"The book guides the reader through an analysis of eight distinct performances at work in the discourse on customary international law. One of its key claims is that customary international law is not the surviving trace of an ancient law-making mechanism that used to be found in traditional societies. Indeed, as is shown throughout, customary international law is anything but ancient, and there is hardly any doctrine of international law that contains so many of the features of modern thinking. It is also argued that, contrary to mainstream opinion, customary international law is in fact shaped by texts, and originates from a textual environment"--Page 4 de la couverture.

The book provides an original and captivating perspective on international law and Giorgio Agamben's work. The manuscript is profoundly aesthetic-textual in its approach, as exemplified in its deft and insightful close readings of drama (Goethe's Faust), prose fiction (Melville's Bartleby and Benito Cereno) and lyric, be it devotional (Laudes Regiae, Handel, 'The Lord is a Man of War') or otherwise (Edwin Starr's 'War', Boy George's 'War Song'). Attentive to language, plot, theme and characterisation, these readings not only read the texts in question, but they also read them anew, yielding fresh, innovative, and unique cultural legal interpretations.

The Routledge Handbook of Chinese and Eurasian International Relations explores China’s relations with the Eurasian continent’s regions and countries in a multipolar era, providing an equal and balanced platform for scholars and practitioners from East, West, North, and South. This diversity enriches the contribution, giving it a dynamic ability to examine sources in different languages and cover a vast geography. Divided into ten parts, this handbook analyses the major powers in a Multipolar World Order; China’s political and economic interests in post-Soviet Eurasia, Middle East, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Arctic; and China's relations with the US, Russia, Eurasian Economic Union, NATO and other players. International technology and environmental experts consider the impact of the Belt and Road Initiative, along with other international economic and transport corridors, and examine China’s multilateral relations and Digital Silk Road and e-governance roles. The Routledge Handbook of Chinese and Eurasian International Relations also contains official documents detailing the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and several European and Asian states, making it an authoritative source on diplomatic affairs. This groundbreaking book will be of interest to policymakers, businessmen, scholars, and students of international relations, area studies, cybersecurity and digitalization, economics and the politics of international trade, security studies, foreign policy, global governance, international organizations, and environmental studies.

The question of the sources of international law inevitably raises some well-known scholarly controversies: where do the rules of international law come from? And more precisely: through which processes are they made, how are they ascertained, and where does the international legal order begin and end? This is the static question of the pedigree of international legal rules and the boundaries of the international legal order. Second, what are the processes through which these rules are made? This is the dynamic question of the making of these rules and of the exercise of public authority in international law. The Oxford Handbook of the Sources of International Law is the very first comprehensive work of its kind devoted to the question of the sources of international law. It provides an accessible and systematic overview of the key issues and debates around the sources of international law. It also offers an authoritative theoretical guide for anyone studying or working within but also outside international law wishing to understand one of its most foundational questions. This Handbook features original essays by leading international law scholars and theorists from a range of traditions, nationalities and perspectives, reflecting the richness and diversity of scholarship in this area.

Launched in 1991, the Asian Yearbook of International Law is a major refereed publication dedicated to international law issues as seen primarily from an Asian perspective, under the auspices of the Foundation for the Development of International Law in Asia (DILA). It is the first publication of its kind edited by a team of leading international law scholars from across Asia. The Yearbook provides a forum for the publication of articles in the field of international law, and other Asian international law topics, written by experts from the region and elsewhere. Its aim is twofold: to promote international law in Asia, and to provide an intellectual platform for the discussion and dissemination of Asian views and practices on contemporary international legal issues. Each volume of the Yearbook normally contains articles and shorter notes; a section on State practice; an overview of Asian states participation in multilateral treaties; succinct analysis of recent international legal developments in Asia; an agora section devoted to critical perspectives on international law issues; surveys of the activities of international organizations òf special relevance to Asia; and book review, bibliography and documents sections. It will be of interest to students and academics interested in international law and Asian studies.