The EU, China, and other WTO members recently released their concluded MPIA with its Annexes I and II as a temporary arrangement to deal with the appeals of panel rulings before the Appellate Body resumes its operation. The WTO dispute settlement mechanism is a complete unit with unique features and inherent logic. Although this arrangement maintains the two-tier process with arbitration to replace the appellate review, there is a fundamental difference between them, which is embodied not only in the dispute settlement process but also in the implementation of the rulings. The challenges that the WTO dispute settlement mechanism encounters are not limited to those procedural issues, but they are also connected with the substantive rules, with which the procedural issues should be jointly resolved. This is the correct way to deal with the current challenges and to reform the multilateral trade regime.

The investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) system is such a means to an end of further economic development and wider social political goals. With major protective provisions of expropriation against compensation, fair and equitable treatment, national treatment, most-favored-nation treatment, full protection and security and umbrella clause, it helps establish a predictable, transparent, and enforceable legal regime to protect foreign investors’ legitimate expectations and lawful investment. As China intends to attract foreign investments by offering a stable business operation environment, its signing a large number of BITs and FTAs may help reduce political and socio-economic risks, which give states, businesses, and individuals the confidence to work in a coordinated manner. The economic development goal, rule of law strategy, tense US-China relations, ideology of multilateralism and community of common destiny, all add up to China’s inclination to incremental but effective ISDS reform.

As Europe is a weaker actor mainly due to her digital underdevelopment, the EU is settling on the regulatory side of digital sovereignty. The article is to comparatively analyze the European and Chinese AI ethical guidelines considering the strategic and normative scope of the guidelines as well as their implications on the legal frameworks of AI both in Europe and China. In this field, the most important initiative in the EU was carried on by the High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence, which, in 2019, released the “Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI,” a catalogue of principles as well as operative measures to achieve Trustworthy AI. In China, instead, the most important initiative was the “Beijing AI Principles” released in 2019 by the Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence, and the “Principles to Develop Responsible AI for the New Generation Artificial Intelligence: Developing Responsible Artificial Intelligence” released in 2019 by the New Generation AI Governance Expert Committee.

The Chinese Marriage Law 2001 stipulates two kinds of divorce: registered divorce and litigated divorce. In this paper, the different grounds and procedures related to these two types of divorce will be examined and the judicial statistics and empirical experience about the legal system of grounds for divorce in practice will be explored. Compared to litigated divorce, the easier registered divorce predominates in terms of number. While the sole legal requirement for litigated divorce is that the marriage has broken down irretrievably, this breakdown needs to be evidenced by specific facts. The facts listed in Marriage Law 2001 are mostly fault-based. However, they are not in line with the situation in practice and increase the difficulty of litigated divorce. The legislative reform for the legal grounds for divorce in the Chinese Civil Code (2021) has been undergone in order to strike a balance between protecting people’s autonomy to divorce and assisting people to make divorce decisions.

The regulation of digital financial assets has been a topic of discussion for many countries over the last decade. China is among the world leaders in the digitalization and blockchain technologies. Under the “one country, two systems,” two different approaches to the digital financial assets have been implemented in the PRC. Although the COVID-19 pandemic has stimulated many investors to diversify their investment portfolios to include digital financial assets, the People’s Bank of China has not changed its prohibitive position on tokens and cryptocurrencies and even launched a campaign against miners and crypto exchanges. Macau and Taiwan have also prohibited initial coin offerings and the transfer of cryptocurrencies due to the risks of money laundering connected with the citizens of mainland China. Macau, Taiwan, and the Monetary Authority of Hong Kong have implemented less stringent regulations of digital financial assets. Comparative analysis demonstrates that Hong Kong acts as an intermediary for China to the digital financial assets.

Pakistan is host to the different indigenous peoples’ groups such as “Koochis,” “Rebari,” “Bakarwal,” “Kehal,” “Jogi,” “Kabootra,” “Sanyasi,” and the most famous “Kalash.” By providing them with a proper legal mechanism for the fortification of their inherited resources, culture expressions and outdated information under a thorough intellectual property framework, Pakistan can preserve the already declining population of indigenous people and create better livelihood opportunities for them. They form at present nondominant sectors of society and are determined to preserve, develop, and transmit to future generations their ancestral territories and ethnic identity, as the basis of their continued existence as peoples, in accordance with their own cultural patterns, social institutions and legal system. Many international instruments have been in operation to support their endeavors. They make up to 15 percent of the extreme poor population of the world. Hence there is an urgency to develop laws for them.

The Biden administration has moved to refocus the US trade policy on China, acting to promote competition but not thoughtless confrontation. Some actions were strong right out of the gate; that should not have been so surprising, but it still was. If anything, the recently concluded G-7 meeting in Cornwall and the subsequent US-EU summit in Brussels indicate that the Biden administration intends to take a stronger and a more multilateral and diplomatic approach to confront China. This approach was further supported by the US allies at the recent NATO meeting in Brussels. The administration is stressing cooperation with allies and competition with China. Biden’s recent diplomacy demonstrates his overriding preoccupation with China. Moving away from Trump’s dysfunctional and disastrous unilateral measures of confrontation with all can only help stabilize the US-China relations and rebuild the WTO, hopefully.

After the 2008 global financial crisis, China’s banks fled the bogs far better than their counterparties in Europe, the US and Japan. China has achieved outstanding success in modernizing its banking sector and financial markets. The theory of law and finance generally acknowledges a close correlation between vibrant financial growth and a function of legal and regulatory system. But this theory may not apply to China. A group of scholars attributes China’s success to its top-down Party-state model of “rule by law” scheme. This book intends to thoroughly examine China’s financial regulatory system in the first decade after the global financial crisis, and provide insights to China’s market liberalization and economic development. This author indicates that China’s current regulatory system on financial market is still restrictive and mainly government-dominated. To further promote the development of financial markets and market economy, more market-led reforms to regulatory system and the expansion of the markets are needed.