Zheng Sophia Tang

Wuhan University | WHU · Academy of International Law and Global Governance

This article explores sovereign immunity in relation to the most recent litigation against China for damages caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. These proceedings will inevitably encounter the initial obstacle of state immunity, which is difficult to overcome. It is a recognized principle in international law that a sovereign and its assets are immune...

Validity is frequently raised as an issue in patent infringement proceedings, either as a defence or as a preliminary question. Where a court may hear a dispute in relation to infringement of foreign patents, whether the court could and should adjudicate their validity is controversial. This article examines five approaches to this matter. It concl...

States have the interest to prevent unauthorized disclosure of state secrets or intelligence, which may jeopardize state security and essential interests. Nearly all countries have enacted specific domestic statutes or adopted relevant rules in their domestic laws regulating obtaining, retaining and disclosure of state secrets. On the other hand, t...

This article utilizes the game theory to assess the feasibility and weaknesses of different methods to promote international judicial cooperation. It starts by justifying the game theory as a proper model to understand the pattern of interaction between states. It then applies typical games to analyse states’ decision-making process. It suggests th...

Validity is frequently raised as an issue in patent infringement proceedings, either as a defence or as a preliminary question. Where a court may hear a dispute in relation to infringement of foreign patents whether the court could and should adjudicate their validity is controversial. This article examines five approaches to this matter. It conclu...

China is one of the most controversial fora for intellectual property rights (IPRs) protection. The current IPRs enforcement in China is the result of a combination of external pressure and internal drive, of the paradox of technology reliance and indigenous innovation, and of a mixture of incompatible history and culture with gradually changing so...

The Belt and Road Initiative (B&R) was proposed by Chinese President XI Jingping in 2013, aimed at fostering “peace, development, cooperation and mutual benefit” among Asia, Europe and Africa, with China as a hub. It is expected to improve connectivity and increase cross-border civil and commercial activities of companies and individuals in the reg...

In the past forty years, the EU has established a very successful and effective civil judicial cooperation scheme that applies to reduce barriers caused by coexistence of different legal systems to smooth cross-border activities and transactions in the single market. This scheme would cease being effective between the UK and other EU Member States...

The EU has established a comprehensive and successful judicial co-operation framework that applies between EU Member States to facilitate cross-border relationships. This framework harmonises and simplifies the rules in ascertaining the applicable law and competent court in cross-border disputes, and enables judgments rendered by the courts of one...

The new edition of this well-established and highly regarded work has been fully updated to encompass the major changes and developments in the law, including coverage of the Recast Brussels I Regulation which came into force in 2015.

The relationship between the European jurisdiction regime and arbitration is one of the areas generating confusion and disputes. The Brussels I Regulation clearly excludes arbitration from its scope to avoid conflicts with the New York Convention, but arbitration-related issues, such as the validity of arbitration agreements, either as an independe...

This book offers a comprehensive study of the prerequisites, effectiveness, and enforcement of exclusive jurisdiction and arbitration agreements in international dispute resolution. it examines whether jurisdiction and arbitration clauses have identical effects in private international law and whether they have been or should be given the same trea...

Transnational gambling activities face the conflict of different substantive laws and regulations in different countries and generate conflict of laws questions about the enforcement of gambling contracts. This article conducts a comparative study of the enforcement of foreign gambling contracts in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Canada, France, Singapo...

Party autonomy provides certainty and predictability to the parties, reduces litigation costs, promotes the prompt assertion of jurisdiction by a court, and simplifies case management between different countries. However, the existence of an exclusive jurisdiction clause cannot completely extinguish conflicts of jurisdiction. Common law countries t...

Non-state law refers to rules that do not belong to any sovereign state. Regardless of the increasing importance of non-state law in international transactions, the application of non-state law in court proceedings has not been clarified. In Europe Union, although the European Commission proposed that contractual parties should be allowed to choose...

The status of international treaties in private international law is controversial and uncertain. The major concern is whether the conflict of laws theory permits treaties, as non-state law, to govern disputes. Chinese legislation do not include any provisions clarifying if international treaties can be applied as the applicable law in China. This...

Chinese judicial practice demonstrates great diversity in enforcing exclusive jurisdiction clauses. In practice, the derogation effect of a valid foreign jurisdiction clause is frequently ignored by some Chinese courts. It may be argued that these Chinese courts fail to respect party autonomy and international comity. However, a close scrutiny show...

Non-state law are norms or rules that are not domestic law of a particular sovereign country. It is a collective concept, which covers, in general, codified customs and rules, uncodified customs and rules and international conventions that stand alone without being implemented or transferred into any domestic legal systems. The issue of whether non...

Party autonomy is one of the most widely discussed and intensively researched topics in private international law. However, the existence of numerous high quality publications and writings does not make the topic outdated. It is still novel, rigorous, topical and, in relation to certain specific issues, controversial. Party autonomy is a private in...

Collective redress congregates claims of a group of claimants with similar factual and legal issues together in one action. It is introduced in consumer litigation primarily to overcome the weakness of expensive and time-consuming court proceedings in small claims in order to increase consumers' access to justice. Compared to the common law countri...

EU has played a pioneering role in protecting consumers' rights to access to justice in cross-border contracts. Under the current European jurisdiction Regulation, a consumer can be protected by the protective jurisdiction rules and always has the right to sue or be sued in his or her domicile, where the business has, by any means, pursued commerci...

Consumer cross-border access to justice has become a hotly debated topic in the contemporary world, especially with the contribution and influence of e-commerce. Although this topic has attracted much attention worldwide, the European Community certainly has played a pioneer role in this area. The European Community is responsible for a number of l...

Multi-defendant litigation raises special interests in jurisdiction: could the claimant consolidate the proceedings against all defendants into one action? If so, what court has jurisdiction? A special jurisdiction rule is provided in Art. 6(1) of Brussels I, which aims to facilitate sound administration of justice, to enhance certainty and to ensu...

The applicable law to a contract in the absence of the parties' choice is governed by Article 4 of the Rome Convention, which has been implemented in the UK by the Contracts (Applicable Law) Act 1990. This rule adopts the ‘closest connection principle’ as a basic principle to decide the applicable law, but also introduces specific presumptions to s...

E-commerce increases the frequency of cross-border disputes between consumers and businesses. It is important to create an effective dispute resolution system for e-consumer disputes in order to ensure citizens' access to justice and improve the further development of e-commerce. The aim of this article is to draw a blueprint of such system, which...

Exclusive choice of forum clauses are widely applied in the international commercial transactions and recognized by the courts in different jurisdictions. The acceptance and recognition of choice of court agreements should be extended in E-commerce, for it can provide certainty and predictability and avoid the difficulties initiated by E-commerce t...