Preface

Since the 4th Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of Communist Party of China (CPC), China has entered into a new era of “promoting law-based governance of the country in an all-around way”. The year of 2016 marks the 45th anniversary of China's restoration of the lawful seat in the UN. As a staunch defender and builder of the international rule of law, China always defends the basic principles and purposes of the United Nations Charter and champions the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. In recent years, XI Jinping, the President of the People's Republic of China, emphasized on many international occasions the importance of“building a new type of international relations featured by win-win cooperation”,“creating a community of shared future for mankind” and “fostering the correct viewpoint of righteousness and benefit”, which raised new goals and values for promoting the international rule of law.

Meanwhile, on furthering the construction of the “Belt and Road” Initiative (“the Initiative”), XI Jinping emphasized that it should be acted according to the principle of “wide consultation, joint contribution, and shared benefit”. Therefore, how to advance the international legal cooperation and establish a law-guaranteed system for the Initiative within the regime of the international rule of law now becomes an essential task for China's involving in the construction of the international rule of law and propelling the positive interactive developments between domestic law and international law.

The bilingual (Chinese/English) publication of the Annual Report on China's Practice in Promoting the International Rule of Law(“the Report”) is aimed at elaborating the ideas that China advocates, the principles and positions that China maintains, and the actions that China has taken in specific areas of the international rule of law, and above all illustrating the significant contributions that China has made to promote the international rule of law in an all-around way. Besides, the Report will also increase the transparency of China's practice in promoting the international rule of law and encourage the international society to view China's participation and contributions in a more objective way, which would eventually increase China's voice and influence within the international arena and during the process of advancing the international rule of law.

Since 2014, the Institute of the International Law of Wuhan University (“the Institute”) has united all colleagues to edit, publish and distribute the Report. At the beginning of 2016, the Institute decided to list the Report as one of the Major Achievements of the National Top Think-Tank. Besides, the Institute also plans to broaden and deepen the research areas based on previous versions of 2015 and 2016 with some new challenging topics sprout in the field of the international rule of law.

From the perspective of China's practice, the Report (2016) extends to almost every issue on the rule of law connected with global governance. It consists of two parts—practice summaries and reports on special topics.

The first part summarizes the practice of China in specific areas of promoting the international rule of law. It discusses the following issues: (1) the Rule of Law and Relations among States, which demonstrates China's practice in promoting the international rule of law in environmental protection, international development, air and outer space, cyber space, international human rights, international humanitarian law, international criminal law and other fields; (2) the Rule of Law and International Economic Relations, which exhibits China's practice in promoting international trade law and international taxation law; (3) the Rule of Law and International Civil and Commercial Affairs, which includes China's practice in promoting the applicable law, the foreign-related civil procedure, international legal assistance in civil and commercial matters, and food security;(4) Overseas Dissemination of China's Position and Practice in International Law, which mainly introduces the contributions made by the Chinese academic circle in terms of promoting the international rule of law.

The second part focuses on the special themes of China's practice in promoting the international rule of law, which systematically concludes China's theoretical innovation, institutional construction and some latest practice within some specific areas in 2016. It includes the following chapters: “China and Community of Shared Future for Mankind”, “The ‘Belt and Road' Initiative and Enhancing International Credibility of Chinese Judiciary”, “Issues Relating to the Historic Rights in the South China Sea Arbitration”, “Towards a Great Power of International Law in Cyberspace”, “Study on the Expiration of Paragraph 15(a)(ii) of China's Accession Protocol” and “International Law and Practice Concerning Anti-Corruption and Pursuing Fugitives and Illegal Assets”.

The Report (2016) is collectively written by the researchers of the Institute, including Professor QIN Tianbao, the Director of the Wuhan University Research Institute of Environmental Law. Compiling this report is an attempt without any prior experience to refer to, so unavoidably, omissions and deficiencies still exist both in structure and in content. We welcome comments from authorities and academic peers to help us further improve the next edition. Finally, we gratefully acknowledge the Social Sciences Academy Press (China) for publishing the Report in both English and Chinese.

XIAO Yongping

FENG Jiehan

June 2017