International and Comparative Law in the Asia Pacific – serie

The book contemplates the relations between national security and human rights. It studies how national security and human rights interact with each other in Europe and China, and how each actor seeks to protect one without damaging the substance of the other. The book aims to offer an insight into the legitimacy of the assumption that China is partial to security while European nations opt for freedom.By comparing the approaches taken by Europe and China, the book finds that both parties tend to allow the government authorities to take proactive actions against national security threats, even those threats may be potential, distant or cumulative. The substantive control, internal and external, concerns mainly the task of preventing the impugned power from being abused.Nevertheless, divergences do exist. In terms of how countries deal with national security threats, it is not determined only by the nature of threats, but by the extent to which government authorities are sensitive to them. Divergences are also found in how the two parties unfold their approaches. It is noted that the approach taken by China is short of an effective arrangement against abuse of power by the government authorities. In this context, the book proposes the areas that China can work on without meeting resistance from its existing political system.The book sheds new light on how to read the national security case law, which helps readers get hold of the main threads of the ECtHR’s decision-making patterns and categorise relevant case law. Scholars generally hold that the Court’s reasoning is short of clarity and consistency. The book proposes a way in which we can find the consistence and patterns that lie in the Court’s reasoning in national security case law.The intended readership includes scholars and researchers in the fields of human rights, legal studies, political science and Chinese studies, especially those whose research interests centre oninternational human rights law,human rights limitations and derogations,European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR),China’s human rights course and practice,comparative legal studies of Europe and China, andthe conflict and reconciliation between national security and human rights.The book can also serve policy makers and human rights NGOs, byproviding a new perspective to read the national security case law of the ECtHR,offering detailed insights about China’s approach and practice in national security cases which often raise observers’ concerns over human rights violations, andidentifying deficiencies in China’s approach and putting forward constructive suggestions on how to improve it.

The book focuses on the new Chinese Civil Code. It will be a great promotion of the Chinese Civil Code and enhance its understanding at the international level. It will also promote the understanding of Chinese law in the context of the One Belt One Road Initiative. Since the Chinese Civil Code came into force in 2021, it is still at an early stage of comparing Australian contract law and contract law principles in the Chinese Civil Code. To date, there are few systematic studies on the comparison of contract law in Australia and in China. The existing literature on the comparison is much more based on the old Chinese contract law of 1999. In addition, the existing literature on Australian contract law generally lacks a comparative dimension, particularly with China. The standard Australian contract law books and articles contain little reference to what similar problems might be conceived of or dealt with in a civil law jurisdiction like China. In the case of the Chinese Civil Code, although there are useful works on its legislative provisions, theories and doctrines, the contents of those works may not be readily comprehensible by an Australian lawyer or scholar unless set in a comparable context. This book seeks to fill this gap in the existing literature.This book will also provide a comparison and analysis of Chinese and Australian contract law to show international legal scholars and practitioners not only the judicial interpretation and application of contract law rules in China but also the scholastic understandings of and approaches to the comparison of it with a common law jurisdiction, such as Australia. Another aim of the book is to lay a foundation to commence a long-term project to comprehensively compare selected areas and topics in Australian contract law and Chinese contract law, such as damages.

This book adopts a comparative and empirical approach to the discussion relating to the subject matter. The book compares various selected topics in both China and Australia, drawing attention to historical, contemporary, and international characteristics. Also, in discussing the topics, the authors will conduct surveys and interviews to get first-hand materials and describe the real situations in both countries. To the best knowledge of the authors, this is the first time that this approach has been adopted to compare legal education and the legal profession focusing on China and Australia.  This book introduces legal education and the legal profession in China and Australia to lay a foundation based on which it further compares them. More importantly, this book discusses some selected topics relating to legal education and the legal profession in the context of globalization, the digital age, and COVID-19. The intended readership is an international audience including students at both undergraduate and graduate levels, legal scholars, and legal practitioners in general, and those in China and Australia in particular. This book intends to analyse the discourse of legal education and identify and create innovative ways of teaching and learning the law in China and Australia. It focuses on research, theory, and practice within legal education and the legal profession based on imaginative and sophisticated educational thinking from an empirical and comparative perspective. It also takes a broad view of theory and practice relating to legal education and the legal profession. It is sensitive to the diversity of contexts in which law is taught, learned, and practised.

This book provides a study on the relevance of good faith obligation with a specific focus on Australia and China. To accomplish this, good faith is examined by revisiting the legal approaches from a comparative perspective in understanding whether there is a continuing role for good faith in commercial contracts.