By Patrick M. Renz and Frauke Heidemann
What China’s growing legal expertise could mean for its foreign policy.
As the South China Morning Post has learned, earlier this year the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs established an international legal committee with the hope of advancing its interests through treaties and legal provisions. This team of legal experts will be tasked with helping to repatriate fugitives of the anti-corruption campaign. From a Western perspective, this development should be welcomed. It forces China to face the concerns many nations have about the human rights situation and death penalty in China if the country wants to sign more bilateral extradition treaties.
Greater expertise of international legal norms is a necessary next step for the rising power. China has considerable economic might and shows this with initiatives such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank as well as its increasing willingness to take up a bigger role in global governance. With all this comes the need to understand the legal framework in which the global governance game is played.
One area where policy wonks will have to carefully monitor how China employs this newly gained expertise is the law of the sea. While China has both signed and ratified the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), it has recently made use of its right not to join in international arbitration efforts brought forward by the Philippines and Vietnam regarding the conflicting territorial claims in the South China Sea. Several analysts have criticized China for not making use of the legal means and instead insisting on bilateral dispute resolution while reclaiming land and building dual-use facilities in the South China Sea. This could potentially change if China uses the new expertise to put more emphasis on legal means.
Read the full story at The Diplomat