Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2022
Scholarship in the discipline of international law may take different forms. It may deal systematically with general practice in a comprehensive way, resulting in a textbook or treatise that is a culmination of long years of teaching, research, and learning. It may examine specific topics of international law in an empirical, historical, and analytical exercise of intellect and reach considerable depth in understanding the topics, culminating in a monograph. Or it may focus on issues of narrow scope in an article, which, of limited size, is suitable for publication in a journal and yearbook. This review focuses on the public international law scholarship in all three forms published by Chinese scholars in the past few years, although the nature of a review necessarily limits the number of publications selected for review. The plan is to take stock of the mainstream thoughts and methods through reviewing the selected publications. The term “international law,” meaning public international law, is used throughout this review for sake of convenience.
Note from the Editor: As I step down from my twenty-nine years as American Journal of International Law Book Reviews Editor, I would like to express my deep appreciation to the many fine Journal Editors-in-Chief, AJIL and ASIL colleagues and staff, and others with whom I have had the great privilege and pleasure of working on the Journal's Book Review section over this time. In particular, I would like to thank my most recent colleagues on our AJIL Book Review team—ASIL Publications Director Justine Stefanelli and ASIL Senior Copy Editor Erin Lovall—for their excellent work, advice, patience, and friendship over these recent years. I would also like to express my profound thanks and admiration to the hundreds of book reviewers—both ASIL members and many others—who during my tenure as AJIL Book Review editor have so generously contributed their time, expertise, and ideas to bringing recent important, useful, and interesting international law scholarship to the attention of our national and international AJIL readers. Finally, I want to send my very best wishes to my successor, Jeffrey L. Dunoff, as Editor of our AJIL Book Review section.
1 “b. international custom, as evidence of a general practice accepted as law.”
2 Hanqin, Xue, Chinese Contemporary Perspectives on International Law: History, Culture and International Law, 355 Recueil des Cours 41 (2011)Google Scholar.
3 Koh, Harold Hongju, American Schools of International Law, 410 Recueil des Cours 9, 39–40 (2020)Google Scholar.
4 Zhou Gengsheng, Guoji Fa [International Law], 2 vols. (1981).
5 Chiu, HungDah, Book Review: International Law, by Wang Tieya and Wei Min; Selected Materials on International Law, by Wang Tieya and Tian Ruxuan, 77 AJIL 977, 978 (1983)Google Scholar.
6 Anthea Roberts, Is International Law International? 160 (2017).
7 Guoji Fa [International Law] (Wang Tieya ed., 2004). There were sixteen scholars or practitioners involved in the writing of that book.
8 The statistic is based on a survey done by this reviewer for purposes of this review, taking into account figures reported in Deng Lie, Gai Ge Kai Fang Si Shi Nian Zhong Guo Ji Gong Fa Xue Yan Jiu Shu Ping [Review of China's Research in the Science of Public International Law During the Forty Years’ Reform and Opening-up], Fa Lu Ping Lun [Law Review] 1, 7, 9 (2018).
9 The three pages contain two charts on the percentage of cases in which China, the United States, and the EU have been subject to compliance review under Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU) Article 21.5 or have been subject to enforcement measures under DSU Article 22.
10 Those pages include three charts showing the time spent by China, India, and Brazil, respectively, on implementation of DSB reports, and the number of cases in which the three countries are subject to either compliance review or enforcement measures.