China and International Adjudication—Picking Up Steam?

Abstract

Abstract This article examines the gradual shift from outright rejection of legal methods of international dispute settlement towards greater acceptance of it in certain contexts on the part of China in recent years using a tripartite typology. The first type includes analysis of a minor softening of its traditional strategic detachment from some international adjudicative systems in general public international law, international criminal law and international human rights law. The second type focuses on China’s deepening engagement with adjudicative systems in the areas of international trade law and international commercial and investment law. The third category analyses its exploratory accommodation to adjudicative settlement mechanisms in the law of the sea and in newer areas. The article fleshes out this classification by examining the roots of both historical and contemporary attitudes underlying China’s asymmetrical and regime-specific approach to international adjudication with reference to Chinese major policy initiatives including the Belt and Road Initiative.