ABSTRACT

This chapter examines why China is wary of making international human rights law an effective component of its domestic legal system and why it has failed to pursue sincere efforts to reform its criminal law, improve its human rights record, and fully comply with international treaty norms. It investigates why China is antagonistic towards human rights regimes, while it has been welcoming of other forms of legal reform, institutional development, and foreign cooperation. Confucianism and Legalism, which evolved as competing legal paradigms in ancient China, influenced the development of legal thinking and institutional structure over three millennia. The chapter focuses on how Confucian philosophy influenced the development of Chinese legal doctrine, and how the political experience of Imperial China affected its attitude towards international law and Western legal traditions. It describes how the transition engineered by Deng Xiaoping propelled China towards the market economy accompanied by an incomplete reform of the political and legal system.