For a longer project, I am carefully analyzing the Supreme People’s Court’s (SPC’s) 2019 Opinions on the People’s Courts Providing Further Services and Guarantees for Belt & Road Construction (BRI Opinion #2) (关于人民法院进一步为“一带一路”建设提供司法服务和保障的意见, about which I previously wrote in January (at some length). Each phrase in an SPC Opinion has a particular meaning and usually a backstory. As I said in January, it takes knowledge of a constellation of related policies and practices to decode SPC Opinions.  Those of us outside the Chinese court system realistically can be expected to identify only a portion of the references. This blogpost focuses on two phrases in Article 25 of BRI Opinion #2–“publish typical (model/exemplary) cases on an irregular basis, issue white papers at a suitable time (不定期公布典型案例, 适时发布白皮书).  

What’s new?

In public speeches this month (August, 2020), two SPC judges revealed that the suitable time for issuing a white paper and model cases somewhat related to the BRI is “soon.”  As I (and many others) have written, the SPC has used the political importance of the BRI to improve the legal infrastructure for and personnel handling the judicial review of arbitration.  (As others have written, under Chinese arbitration law, the courts have a greater role in the review of arbitration.), Judge Shen Hongyu, deputy head of the SPC’s #4 Civil Division revealed in a speech in early August, reported in Legal Daily, that “in the future, a bilingual white paper annual report on the judicial review of arbitration in 2019 and analysis of typical cases on the judicial review of arbitration will be issued” (将发布《2019年度仲裁司法审查案件白皮书》（中英双语版）以及仲裁司法审查典型案例分析).  The same news was repeated by #4 Civil Division Judge Ma Dongxu and Judge Shen Hongyu in a recent conference (held on-line) of the Chinese Arbitration Law Society.

White Papers

Issuing a judicial review of arbitration white paper would be a first for the #4 Civil Division and a step forward in transparency about the work of the SPC and judicial review of arbitration in particular. From the title, I surmise that the white paper will be nationally focused, similar to the SPC’s annual bilingual intellectual property white paper and environmental protection white paper. Although I have previously written about difficulties in locating full text versions of Chinese court white papers, I am quite sure that this white paper will be made accessible.

Late last year, the Beijing #4 Intermediate Court (and China University of Political Science and Law) issued a big data study of cases involving the judicial review of arbitration cases (analyzed here in English) I surmise that the SPC’s white paper it will show the success of the new judicial interpretations that the SPC issued in late 2017 and related notices as well as the pro-arbitration policy of the SPC. Greater openness about the judicial review of arbitration would be welcome by all interested parties. It is unclear whether the #4 Civil Division will give consolidated information about the cases that it reviews through the Prior Approval system, which is its version of the qingshi (请示，request for instructions), about which I have previously written.  This article in the Kluwer Arbitration Blog provides a good summary of Chinese practitioner objections to the request for instruction procedures in the Prior Approval system.

Publishing typical cases

As I wrote last month and many times previously on this blog, the SPC frequently uses typical/model/exemplary cases, in several ways, including  to supplement judicial interpretations and legislation.  That was made clear by last month’s guidance on similar case search. The #4 Civil Division (the cases are issued by the SPC itself, of course) and the Supreme People’s Court Intellectual Property Court (SPCIPC) often use typical cases in analogous ways–unifying judicial standards. The press release that the SPC released in June on typical cases involving ship crew members was by SPC standards, quite blunt in pointing out the inadequacy of related law.  (“Our country has not formulated a special crew law.. it lacks more targeted regulations…Typical cases combine the characteristics of the protection of the rights and interests of seafarers, analyze the law and reasoning, and fill the gap between the norms and the facts by extracting the main points of the judgments (我国尚未制定专门的船员法…缺乏更有针对性的规定。典型案例结合船员权益保护的特点，析法说理，通过裁判要旨的提炼，填补规范与事实之间的空隙)

Justice Luo Dongchuan, formerly the SPC vice president responsible for both the #4 Civil Division and the SPCIPC pointed out the gap-filling role of typical cases more discretely. (He has since been transferred to Fujian Province to serve as Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee’s Political-Legal Commission).The SPC issued BRI-related typical/model cases in 2015 and 2017  and BRI guiding cases in 2019.   (For those interested, Stanford Law School’s Guiding Cases Project has translated the model and guiding cases (note that there is a trademark symbol for B & R cases). The legal rules in typical/model cases and guiding cases may eventually be incorporated into a judicial interpretation or legislation (explained in my earlier article).

Importance of the White Paper

I wrote in December of last year that one aspect of being in a leadership role in the SPC (referring to the president, vice presidents, division heads, deputy heads, and  their equivalents in the affiliated institutions of the SPC) is ensuring that policies, actions, initiatives, and other decisions hit the target of being politically correct (post 19th Party Congress and post 4th Plenum) while being “problem-oriented,” that is, addressing relevant practical issues.  Judge Shen skillfully hit that target in her speeches. She linked her first presentation to language in the Decision of the 4th Plenum of the 19th Party Congress, stating that “promoting external publicity on the rule of law and spreading the voice of the rule of law in China is an important manifestation of serving the overall situation of the Party and the country ( 推进对外法治宣传，传播中国法治声音，是服务党和国家工作大局的重要体现). As I asked in January, does it hit the target with foreign audiences? Is engaging special publicity for foreigners in fact useful in reassuring foreign governments, foreign state-owned companies, commercial entities, and individuals that their dispute is best heard in China?

Rather than special publicity, the bilingual white paper and model cases, aimed at both domestic and foreign audiences, are in fact better vehicles by which the domestic and foreign legal communities can assess how Chinese courts supervise arbitration, and how that compares to other jurisdictions.  Because many trade, investment, and licensing agreements involving Chinese parties have arbitration clauses, this white paper is sure to be reviewed carefully by many.