This article presents three main arguments: First, shared competence exists between the national and supranational levels within the European Union (EU) because EU Member States do not trust the European Commission in the external relations law of the EU. Second, the EU will have greater bargaining power in international negotiations if it speaks in a single voice. Within the EU-27, we have compatible values, overlapping interests, shared goals, as well as economic, social and political ties. Therefore, there is a presumption of collective action in the EU’s external relations. However, EU Member States disagree on many issues before they start negotiations, while trying to define a mission together as partners of the European project. Third, Member States confer specific negotiating powers on the EU only when it is in their own national interest to have a common European position on international negotiations.

Competition policy has great relevance to all the firms in any economy. Even though it is unlikely that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have enough market power to constrain competition through a misuse of such power, they may still face prosecution if they are involved in a boycott of competitors or suppliers, price-fixing, output-restriction and other monopoly agreements. This article discusses antitrust issues pertaining to SMEs with a focus on China’s Anti-Monopoly Law (AML) and its implementation rules. Contrary to the popular view that SMEs benefit from competition laws, evidence shows that they are reluctant to get involved in antitrust litigation against large firms partly because of the high legal costs involved. There is an urgent need to promote an awareness of antitrust compliance in China and to educate SMEs about the need to avoid breaching the new antitrust law and its associated regulations. In the meantime, SMEs should take full advantage of the antitrust laws to fight against the abuse of market dominance directed at them, and to gain equal opportunities to market access.

With intensified competition in international trade, corporate social responsibility (CSR) issues have been focused on contentions among different interest-oriented groups and thus overtly, or covertly, being taken into account as a prerequisite for fair trade. For catering to this demand, CSR certification has become a controversial topic in international trade. However, the concealment and complexity involved and woven into this certification can easily make CSR issues new barriers to trade with characteristics of multiplicity in law, sensitivity in recognition, and disputability in practice. For the sake of corporate survival and development, and a relatively harmonious and stable international trade order, it is earnestly urgent to explore appropriate legal approaches for responding to these complicated issues according to public international law.

How to use electronic evidence to decide cases has become a major conundrum in Chinese judicial practice. Starting with an analysis of a typical case, this article discusses two basic ideas of electronic evidence in deciding cases, points out the distinctions between scientific proof and judicial proof, and concludes that it should follow the road of judicial proof by suitably referring to the principle of scientific proof. On the basis of such discussion, it further expounds on the models and the mechanisms of electronic evidence. In addition, considering Chinese traditional theory of evidential law and learning from the proving method in historiography, it puts forward the theory of evidential system for electronic evidence in the virtual space. Finally, it focuses on how to deal with the digital alibi in practice and arrives at a solution by managing those theories comprehensively.

This article reviews the evolution of Chinese law on food safety and the concerned system defined by the Food Safety Law (2009) and other related laws. Although being improved by this law, in comparison with the Food Hygiene Law (1995), food safety still remains severe today. In analysing the food safety problems in China, it is found that the issues, such as tension between security and safety, problems in agricultural products, difficulties in administration and supervision etc., cannot be solved by this law in the near future.

This article analyzes the conflicts of international law on genetically modified (GM) food labeling and explains possible methods to harmonize these conflicts. One way is to interpret the treaties of the World Trade Organization (WTO), Biodiversity Convention, and the International Court of Justice (ICJ); the other way is to enhance cooperation among international institutions and treaties, such as WTO, Biodiversity Convention, Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC), International Law Commission (ILC), and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). These methods cannot form an international standard on GM food labeling accepted by most countries. The difficulties with this issue concerned illustrate that GM food labeling shows off conflicts between trade law and environmental law, which lead to legal chaos that is faced with uncertainty of technology, fragmentation of international law and diversity of domestic law, and complexity of national interests on environmental labeling and process labeling.

China has one of the longest histories of civilization in the world. In ancient China, civil disputes were solved by moral principles of Confucianism, called li (礼). Therefore, at the time of the emergence of li, privacy was indirectly protected to some extent. However, li also restrained the legal privacy protection at that time. Moreover, the substantial meaning of traditional protection for privacy is quite different from that in modern society. In consequence, it is difficult to postulate that there was legal protection for privacy in ancient China, though privacy had been indirectly protected by the theory of li. If the right to privacy is seen as a milestone in its evolution in modern society, the modern concept and protection of privacy emerged in China almost a century later than in some Western countries. 1 The first consideration for the protection of privacy in China was a judicial interpretation by the Supreme Court in 1988.2 Since then, China has been developing its own protection for privacy. This article is to explore privacy standards in both ancient and modern China with two main parts: (a) The first part discusses the privacy in ancient China, including traditional Chinese concepts of privacy, traditional Chinese protection for privacy, and its evaluation; (b) the second part examines the privacy standards and privacy protection in modern China.

Xiaoguang Xu 徐晓光, 原生的法:黔东南苗族侗族地区的法人类学调查 (The Primary Law—Investigation of Legal Anthropology in the Districts of Miao and Dong Minorities in the Southeast of Guizhou Province, China). Beijing: China University of Political Science and Law Press, 2010. ISBN: 9787562035916. 348 pp.￥28.00 (paperback, in Chinese).