This chapter covers the regime for the enjoyment and exercise of rights and freedoms under international human rights law. It explores restrictions, derogations, and the loss of rights and freedoms, as well as the principles governing these aspects. The chapter examines the legal and procedural frameworks for regulating the exercise of rights, the conditions under which restrictions and derogations are permissible, and the safeguards to prevent abuse. It also discusses the role of international bodies in monitoring compliance with human rights standards and the challenges in balancing individual rights with public interests. The chapter highlights the importance of ensuring that any limitations on rights are lawful, necessary, and proportionate.

This case study provides a comprehensive analysis of the intricate political risks faced by TikTok, the Chinese social media giant, within the complex US political landscape. Beginning with an exploration of the security concerns articulated by the US government, the discussion centers on TikTok’s data collection practices and their perceived impact on US national security. The narrative unfolds by elucidating the multifaceted strategies employed by TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, to address these challenges, including litigation, endeavors toward Americanization, and technological adaptations. It also examines the evolution in the US government’s stance as well as TikTok’s adaptive strategies aimed at sustaining and expanding its presence in the US market. The study depicts the responses of the Chinese government to US policies, unraveling the broader implications of these developments on the global political-economic landscape, exploring the dynamics involved in US-China relations, and providing a deeper understanding of the complexities inherent in such interactions. Finally, this case study invites readers to engage in contemplation on the broader themes of political risks faced by multinational corporations, the challenges inherent in navigating global legal frontiers, and the intricate nature of US-China relations.

This chapter introduces the concept and practice of security in international relations. It explores the dilemmas faced by states, individuals and the global community by first looking at contemporary crises and disagreements about security; second, examining how security has been differently defined and focused; and third, surveying how different theoretical approaches have understood and analysed security.

Most US lawsuits involving Chinese companies are initiated by or against their customers, employees, or business counterparts. However, on occasion, Chinese investors may go to court against a US government entity to resolve a dispute. As US–China relations continue to deteriorate, Chinese companies are increasingly caught in the crossfire of the geopolitical rivalry. Being suspected as agents for the Chinese state, China-headquartered multinational companies, especially those with ties to the Chinese government, have expressed growing frustration over what they perceive as unfair treatment by the US government. This chapter examines the legal reactions of Chinese companies to perceived official bias in the United States in the context of intensifying geopolitical tensions.

Litigation is a complex matter, calling for more sophisticated inquiries than what can be measured by a binary variable, namely, whether or not a Chinese company had experienced US lawsuits. This dichotomy glosses over crucial aspects of Chinese companies’ interactions with the US adjudicatory system. For instance, while prominent Chinese companies such as Huawei have litigated hundreds of lawsuits in the United States, most others were involved in no more than a few cases. However, the coding in Chapter 4 grouped them together in terms of US litigation experience. In fact, those that litigate infrequently may have more in common with Chinese companies that have managed to avoid US lawsuits altogether than prominent repeat players. To unveil important information lost from collecting and coding the data as a binary variable and to ameliorate possible biases in survey data concerning sensitive topics, this chapter explores a hand-collected objective dataset: federal lawsuits involving Chinese companies. It also presents three detailed case studies to demonstrate how Chinese companies with direct investments in the United States navigate the complex host-state legal system. These case studies (i.e., Lenovo, Huawei, and Fuyao Glass) will revisit the hypotheses and findings of prior chapters.

This chapter examines security and Australian foreign policy during 2016–2020 using two strands. It shows that Australia confronted both the ‘high politics’ issues that are the stuff of traditional foreign policy, as well as the unconventional security challenges to which Australia had to adapt. We begin by considering Australia’s conventional security politics, and the three consistent strands in Australia’s security thinking: how Australia fits into a world of super powers and the balancing act it must conduct to do so; relatedly, its alliance with the Unitd States; and Australia’s role in multilateral organisations. We then assess the so-called ‘unconventional’ security issues and their impact on Australian national security. Our analysis reveals that Australia’s responses to unconventional threats were increasingly conventional and relied on domestic tools to solve international problems. Some new threats seemed to bring international tools, like the military, to bear on domestic problems. Moreover, we demonstrate that the security environment was increasingly defined by the ‘grey zone’ – acts that reside between war and peace and take on unconventional forms.

Along the path of datafication, the probability of cyberattacks against critical infrastructure increases as well. The weaponization of 5G networks has brought about further challenges to international economic legal order. Major geopolitical players have adopted comprehensive security measures at home and have also strengthened cooperation with geopolitical allies to protect and enhance the resilience of ICT ecosystems. In this regard, the more recent iterations of international trade agreements are equipped with “modernized” security exceptions to ensure that the exceptions to international trade rules are aligned with the policy needs of the data-driven economy. Innovative exception clauses have been incorporated into FTAs to reconcile conflicts between (digital) trade and (cyber) security, which, overall, grant a dramatically expansive scope and excessively unfettered discretion to states when it comes to “national security.” Questions as to what constitutes “critical infrastructure” and how it should be designated, however, require due process mechanisms to constrain discretionary abuse. Chapter 2 contends that a consensus concerning the scope of “critical infrastructure” would be politically and economically valuable to filter out overgeneralizations of national security claims.

Why does diplomacy exist? How does it contribute to a country’s national interest? How critical is it to national security? The answers to these questions are important as much for people in government as for those on the outside. A country’s diplomatic service is the steward of its national interests abroad. International civil servants, who work on the staff of multilateral organizations like the United Nations and the European Union, are supposed to serve global or regional interests. Both bilateral and multilateral diplomats manage and participate in the daily conduct of international relations. In carrying out their duties, they work within a diplomacy architecture–systems that have been established at the national and global levels. Before we discuss these systems, we need to understand how diplomacy relates to other key terms and concepts, such as national interest, national security and foreign policy.

Times are changing as our global ecosystem for commercializing innovation helps bring new technologies to market, networks grow, and interconnections and transactions become more complex around standards, all to enable vast opportunities to improve the human condition, to further competition, and to improve broad access. The policies that governments use to structure their legal systems for intellectual property, especially patents, as well as for competition—or antitrust—continue to have myriad powerful impacts and raise intense debates over challenging questions. This chapter explores a representative set of debates about policy approaches to patents, to elucidate particular ideas to bear in mind about how adopting a private law, property rights-based approach to patents enables them to better operate as tools for facilitating the commercialization of new technologies in ways that best promote the goals of increasing access while fostering competition and security for a diverse and inclusive society.

The media and US foreign policy elites paint a pessimistic picture of China’s behavior and the likelihood of major conflicts. However, they fail to capture the curious variation in China’s coercive behavior, which is much more nuanced than simplistic predictions that war is imminent. For one, despite the countless forecasts of major wars involving China over the past decade, China has not fought a war since the 1988 Sino-Vietnamese maritime skirmish. Instead, China utilizes a full spectrum of coercive tools, ranging from diplomatic and economic sanctions to gray-zone measures and military coercion. This book examines when, why, and how China attempts to coerce states over threats to its national security. I propose a new cost-balancing theory to explain China’s coercion decisions, while discussing the broader implications for international relations in the concluding chapter. I show that instead of coercing all states and prioritizing military coercion, China is a cautious actor that balances the benefits and costs of coercion. The book identifies the centrality of reputation for resolve and economic cost in driving whether China coerces or not.