ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that China's rejection of the Rome Statute reflects the fact that some conservative and sovereignty-centered perspectives still prevail. It addresses two main reasons for China's non-cooperative stance on the Rome Statute. First, Chinese decision makers prioritize state sovereignty over human rights and are unwilling to accept binding legal obligations that may contain high sovereignty costs. Second, the legalized Rome Statute set up an independent court with mandatory jurisdiction and does not allow states to make reservations. The chapter explores the literature on China's integration with the international legal world in that prior literature has, in general, tended to view China as being gradually socialized by international norms. It provides an overview of China's official positions on major treaty provisions and briefly discusses the process of negotiating the Rome Statute between 1993 and 1998 beginning with a discussion of the hard law features of the Rome Statute.
