The development of Chinese international jurisprudence over the past 70 years can be divided into three stages: fledging; recovery and development; and flourishing. During the period, Chinese international lawyers have made great contributions to the development of international law through, inter alia, the Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence, recognition and succession, the peaceful settlement of international disputes, the Belt and Road Initiative, the Shared Future for Mankind, and so forth. However, participation in international legislation and international judicial activities needs to be further improved, because the theoretical ground for China’s foreign policy and diplomatic practice is still insufficient and academic works with global influence are not enough yet. The development of Chinese international law follows such trends: more valuable interpretation and application of international law; the theoretical innovation of international law; and the improvement of China’s discourse power. These are important missions for Chinese international lawyers.

During the Japanese Occupation of China (1931-45), countless Chinese cultural relics were simply destroyed or looted in accordance with Japan’s notorious ‘Three Alls Campaign,’ also known as ‘Burn all, loot all, and kill all’. Due to the 1972 Japan-Chian Joint Communiqué, however, the Chinese Government renounced its demand for war reparation from Japan. The question then becomes whether, when the Chinese Government renounced its claims for war reparations in a peace treaty. Chinese individuals still have a means to vindicate their rights to request restitution of Chinese cultural relics from Japan. The primary purpose of this research is to tackle two questions: First, was the taking of Chinese cultural relics during the Japanese Occupation prohibited by law? Second, can the Chinese individuals legally require the restitution of looted cultural relics? This paper handles a case of a 1300-year’s old Tang dynasty stele in Japan which has been asked to hand over to China since 2014.

Until the late nineteenth century, the history of international law was remarkably Eurocentric. In the early twentieth century, however, a number of Chinese intellectuals examined and demonstrated existence of international law through the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Period in China. They used international law as a symbol of civilisation to express a gesture of resistance toward the Western imperial oppression and cultural invasion. In this way, Chinese intellectuals hoped to maintain, publicise, or even resurrect China’s rich cultural tradition in a global order governed by the West. Their endeavour represented an important variable in the European imperialist expansion process and constituted political interaction with western ideas to create a truly universal discourse. Unfortunately, most of their efforts have almost been forgotten. What the readers could perceive from these faded writings are not only academic assertions, but also the final splendour of an aged empire.

Piracy poses a great danger to international security and peace. It is necessary for the international community and individual States to take actions to suppress piracy. Despite international cooperation and existing international antipiracy laws, the international community lacks an effective legal regime to suppress piracy. China has fundamental interests in fighting against piracy and has actively cooperated in accordance with the relevant UNSC resolutions. However, China’s domestic antipiracy laws are defective in their substantive and procedural aspects. Further efforts should be made at both the national and international levels in order to effectively suppress global piracy.

Since the existing international legal regime governing space weapons is inadequate, the international community is worried about the weaponization of outer space. This paper introduces the efforts and contributions in this regard made by the UN General Assembly, the Conference on Disarmament, the UN Committee for Peaceful Uses of Outer Space and the UN Institute for Disarmament Research. It then analyzes several different approaches to solving the problem of weaponization of outer space, i.e. amendment of Article IV of the Outer Space Treaty, conclusion of a multilateral treaty on comprehensive prohibition of space weapons, and transparency and confidence-building measures in outer space activities. It concludes that a multilateral treaty on the prevention of weaponization of outer space with appropriate verification mechanism will be a final solution. At the present stage, a combination of various CBMs can also serve the purpose to prevent space weapons.