Currently, China is drafting its new Civil Code. Against this background, the Chinese legal community has shown a growing interest in various legal and legislative ideas from around the world. Within this context, the present book aims at providing the necessary historical and comparative legal perspectives. It concentrates on substantive private law and civil procedure, both in China and in other jurisdictions. These perspectives are of considerable importance for the present codification work. Additionally, the book is dedicated to commemorating the centennial of the first...

In Hong Kong's Legislature Under China's Sovereignty: 1998-2013 Dr Gu Yu thoroughly analyses how Hong Kong's legislature has impacted the law-making process as well as the financial control and supervision of the executive branch of the government. The political cleavage in Hong Kong seen in recent years has affected the level of Legco's autonomy in terms of leadership, rules, committee autonomy and control over the legislative agenda. Given the weakened autonomy of Legco and the decline of moderate forces in both the pro-Beijing and pro-democracy camps, the role of Legco as a...

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...

In Mediation in Contemporary Chinese Civil Justice, Peter C.H. Chan offers by far one of the most comprehensive analyses of the system of mediation of civil and commercial disputes in contemporary China. Based on extensive interviews with judges and a survey on in-court mediation covering 24 courts in China, the author seeks to answer a question that interests many legal scholars: is it practically feasible for the mediation of civil disputes in China to take the shape of genuine alternative dispute resolution, rather than being used by the courts as a means to preserve social...