Dispute Resolution in China: Litigation, Arbitration, Mediation and their Interactions

In recent years, the Chinese legal system of civil litigation, arbitration, and mediation, including the respective laws, regulations, and legal institutions, has undergone many changes. Offering a detailed examination of the elements in the Chinese legal system and the relevant reforms to civil litigation, arbitration, mediation, and hybrid dispute resolution, this book provides a comprehensive study of the civil and commercial dispute resolution landscape in China today. It situates these developments within a unique hybrid of empirical, contextual, and comparative analytical framework while providing a roadmap for productive reforms in the future. This book argues that, rather than being a legal project, China's civil dispute resolution system is essentially a social development project and that the system is constrained by China's political imperatives, which distinguishes the Chinese approach to civil justice reform from contemporary civil justice movements elsewhere. Commercial arbitration in China today is comparatively less political, its reform has been more driven by market-oriented considerations and shaped by socio-economic dynamics. By contrast, civil litigation and mediation are more instrumentalist, and their reform is socio-politically embedded and subject to the Chinese government's social and political objectives. This book will be an essential reading and invaluable reference tool for scholars, students, policymakers and practitioners focusing on Chinese law, dispute resolution, and broader economic and political dimensions of dispute resolution development in China"-- Provided by publisher.