Beginning with the opening-up reforms of Deng Xiaoping, the Chinese government has treated law as a central tool for regulating the economy and guiding institutional transformation. Over the decades, since 1949, China’s path to modernization has been marked by profound, experimental transformations that selectively combined foreign expertise with Chinese foundations. A key feature of this process has been China’s strategic adoption and adaptation of legal transplants. While initially a recipient of foreign legal models, China is now increasingly exporting its own approaches through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This article examines how China’s engagement in shaping the legal and regulatory frameworks of host countries under the BRI differs from traditional models of legal transplants. Rather than imposing, China draws on its historical experience to adopt a pragmatic, adaptive strategy defined by three core characteristics: the combination of Chinese and Western practices; an emphasis on voluntariness tempered by asymmetrical power relations; and a prioritization of policy objectives over autonomous legal principles. While this strategy raises concerns about legal fragmentation and institutional coherence, it also fosters a space for legal pluralism, offering an alternative to the homogenization typically associated with Global North legal transplants.

Recent controversy around comfort women litigation in Korea illustrates the perplexity of dealing with colonial issues within the framework of international law. A number of victims filed two lawsuits against Japan, requesting compensation for the damages caused in the comfort station. In both lawsuits, the key issue was whether the court should dismiss the case on the grounds of state immunity. Surprisingly, the two courts reached opposite conclusions. The first judgment rejected Japan’s claim of state immunity and announced that the Korean court still holds jurisdiction over the case, while the second judgment dismissed the case by reason of customary international law. Although contrary in conclusion, the rationale of both judgments reflects theoretical confusion about applying the principle of state immunity to an incident that happened between a state and its colony. In neither lawsuits was there an issue of how to represent the damages induced by colonial mobilization. Instead, all the litigants focused on the issue of state immunity. However, since the principle of state immunity is a norm applied between equivalent sovereign states, it does not easily apply to the problems arising from colonial relations. Korea was annexed to Japan as an “incorporated but unequal” part. While the issue was the systematic rape committed against the women in the colony, the identity of Korean comfort women was ambivalent - they were not combatants of the enemy state, but were practically seen as a constituent member of the Japanese military.

In this article, I will analyze the discourse in the lawsuits that reveal the deficiency of jurisprudence in Korea regarding how to address the issue of coloniality. By comparing the two decisions that are opposite and yet similar, I explore how the formalist discussion regarding state immunity veiled substantive issues relevant to the court. Finally, I suggest the possibility of an alternative framework for how the law might accept and address the ambivalent colonial identities of victims, drawing on the International Criminal Court’s Ntaganda case.

This paper explores the reasons that divorce petitions by trafficked women in China were denied in courts in the wake of the chained woman incident. The author collected and examined divorce verdicts involving trafficked women from China Judgements Online. Among 100 unique cases, 87 were denied in their first attempts. Most of these cases were treated in the same way as regular divorce cases, with trafficking allegations either blatantly ignored or dismissed as irrelevant. The author argues that the systematic denials and ignoring of trafficking allegations is enabled by a hegemonic legal consciousness within the Circuit of Trafficking that includes not only parties directly engaged in trafficking activities, but also state actors such as the judges and legislators who prioritise “family” preservation and social stability over the rights and well-being of trafficked women. Without addressing and changing this hegemonic legal consciousness, any reform, if it should take place, would be rendered futile in practice.

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has advanced in various regions. While analyses have predominantly focused on its political and economic impacts, its legal aspects received less attention. This article explores whether the Chinese legal model implemented via the initiative represents a novel approach to international law-making. The focus is on its application in the Middle East and North Africa, where a set of primary mechanisms are utilised: soft law instruments that establish a theoretical and practical framework for collaboration. The author provides a comparative analysis of the European Union (EU) and United States (US) legal models, considering the overall pros and cons of Beijing’s strategy. The article concludes that while these mechanisms represent a pragmatic governance model relying on flexible rules, they are not a novel approach. The US and the EU have employed such soft law instruments, under which binding agreements were established to ensure formal commitments.

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a Chinese infrastructure and investment project launched in 2013 that seeks to link China with over 70 countries through transport, communication, and trading networks. The BRI consists of building and construction projects including railways, ports, roads, and other vital trade infrastructure. Importantly, the BRI also includes the establishment of a new “Digital Silk Road” (DSR) enhancing digital connectivity using the latest 5G high bandwidth, low latency mobile and satellite technology. In 2019, several Western states (notably USA, Australia, Canada, and the UK) banned Chinese telecommunications technology companies, such as Huawei, from rolling out 5G networks in their respective jurisdictions. The purported basis for the bans were security concerns over the ability of the Chinese government to control and potentially intercept communications over the Huawei systems. In the MENA region, no such bans have been adopted and the DSR is proceeding to connect MENA economies to China at a rapid pace. This places MENA countries in a precarious position between strategic links with the US as the global hegemon with a strategic interest in the region, and the emerging Chinese global political and economic order. The regulation of digital communication technologies is one dimension where legal frameworks must be designed with care and discernment to balance competing geopolitical forces. This article seeks to answer the question of how best to understand the legal regulation of new technologies in the MENA region and argues that the conceptual lens of “Tech-diplomacy” helps to provide such an understanding. In addition to privacy-centric, security-centric, and growth-centric philosophical and jurisprudential approaches to understanding data regulation, the predicament of the MENA region is a case study in how geopolitics can also inform our understanding of tech regulation.

This paper engages in a comprehensive analysis of the historical processes leading to the destruction of the Original Nations of Belarus and Latvia. The research is structured in three sections, with the first outlining the tribal roots common to both Latvian and Belarusian nations, serving as a foundation for subsequent analyses. The second section constitutes the core of the research, employing an Original Nation approach to dissect the impact of historic occupations in the five key waves—religious conversion, invasions of the Mongol-Tatar Yoke that led to administrative integration into states, a language push under the Russian Empire, identity erasure during Sovietization, and lastly, the restoration of independence in both countries. The last section surveys the modern states of Belarus and Latvia, emphasising their endeavours to revive their Original Nations, as both nations share the burden of recovering lost national elements, resisting cultural repression, and building a robust national identity.

Sino-Arab Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) have remained elusive over two decades of increasing economic relations and trade negotiations. Nevertheless, substantial investments and trade demonstrate the Arab region’s strategic importance to China. Recent strategic drivers of China’s engagement with the Middle East have evolved from an original energy security focus, to more recently integrating technological investments into partnerships, such as artificial intelligence and renewable energy infrastructure—complicating progress towards an FTA. Such measures can help progress achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals and offer economic development opportunities, but negotiations may be hindered by concerns ranging from technological dependency to trade competition. Examining opportunities and challenges in the developing China–Arab relations, the article explores legal and policy obstacles and opportunities towards securing an FTA. With a focus on recent developments in AI and sustainability partnerships, the article analyses legal strategies and international law best practices for a model FTA for Arab countries.

The dispute of married out women has become an important modernisation problem since the 1990s as the result of urbanisation and industrialisation. It concerns social stability at grassroots that may affect the ruling base. While the Chinese government is constantly striving to solve it, it also shows how deficient the protection of women’s property rights is that it causes so many controversies. Currently, the cultural explanation that simply attributes the phenomenon to traditional patriarchal culture is popular among scholars and widely accepted, which is, however, proved to be misleading. This article attempts to break this stereotype and points out that this trouble is not directly related to Chinese traditional culture. Rather, it is caused by the majority’s tyranny under the current villager self-government and collective property rights. This article also attempts to find possible solutions, requiring improving the rural self-government system and clearly defining the boundaries of collective property rights by law.

Businesses from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) aiming for a global reach must navigate through different levels of rule of law—with different degrees of strength—to access foreign markets. The rule of law is essential from a business perspective as it reduces the costs of transactions on the global market. However, the paper aims to demonstrate that there are transaction costs due to the frictions between the rules of law in the multilevel system, which the MENA business must take into consideration in its search for contract partners and new markets. The focus is on the overall rule of law components of the World Trade Organization, the European Neighbourhood Policies, and the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative and their interaction.

The ambitious Belt and Road Initiative is believed to boost the economic development of the Middle Eastern countries. ts official framework aligns with the transformative vision of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), advocating for the meaningful inclusion of indigenous communities in decision-making processes that could significantly impact their environments and livelihoods. Despite the essential spirit of the Belt and Road Initiative to promote inclusiveness and transparency consistent with the principles of the UN Charter, the existing paradigm fails to provide robust and effective protection for the indigenous communities. This gap is further exacerbated with the absence of effective domestic legal mechanisms to prevent extractive projects from engaging in environmentally damaging projects, which in turn, subject the indigenous people living in the naturally oil-and-gas-rich areas in the region to the adverse consequences of an unregulated oil and gas industry. The article contends that the right to consultation within the Belt and Road Initiative framework currently lacks binding obligations for financial enterprises and companies to uphold preferential standards for indigenous populations, rendering it legally ineffective. It concludes by proposing an alternative framework aimed at ensuring the meaningful realization of these rights in a more pragmatic and effective manner.

This inaugural presidential address of the Asian Law and Society Association features three recently published monographs to draw attention to research by the next generation of scholars and to show how they contribute to the field. Although the three books differ in terms of focus, methods, and findings, they share a hallmark of law and society, that is, they investigate practices, beliefs, and objects that are often taken for granted. At the same time, the three studies arrive at dissimilar conclusions about law, which reflects another unifying hallmark of law and society—its diversity. Together, the inconsistent findings expose the many profiles of law and demonstrate its fascinating nature. They remind us that we do not yet know the intricacies of law, and we need all kinds of law and society scholarships—on Asian societies and elsewhere—to continue advancing the field.

In 2013, President Xi Jinping announced the ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), aimed at positioning China at the forefront of the global economy. Central to the BRI is the pursuit of energy security—a long-standing priority linked to diplomacy and essential for China’s continued growth. To meet its rising energy needs, China has launched numerous infrastructure development projects, with energy playing a key role within the broader BRI framework. Similarly, since the oil crisis of the 1970s, the European Union (EU) has prioritised energy security through investments in alternative energy sources and resource diversification. This article explores the shared interests of these two economic powers in securing and investing in alternative energy. It focuses on a central question: how might the BRI align with the EU’s Neighborhood Policy to strengthen energy independence across Eurasia and generate mutual benefit? This analysis examines both the challenges and the opportunities for collaboration and synergy.