Illegal Logging and Related Trade: Who Combat It as Legal Subjects?

Issue on illegal logging and related trade is a hot topic for the international community. It has brought the negative effects to the sustainable development on global society, economy and ecology, which is also one of the main objectives of international cooperation to combat with. At present, subjects of international law play a decisive role in combating illegal logging and related trade. The subjects of international law generally refer to states, intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) and part of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), which can have an independent international legal personality, enjoy rights and assume obligations of international law. As a responsible big country of the international community and state member of intergovernmental organizations and international treaties of forest resources protection, China ought to fully perform the obligations of international law. In face of illegal logging and related trade around the world, China should rationally tackle with it, resolutely crack down on it, and finally choose the sustainable development strategy based on rule of law.

Legal protection of the rights of clinical trial subjects in China

Subjects in clinical trials, either patients with the target disease or healthy vohmteers, inevitably run a risk of injury or even death. To protect human subjects＇ rights to life and health, the Declaration of Helsinki has been developed as ＂a statement of ethical principles for medical research involving human subjects. Though widely regarded as a milestone in human research ethics, it is not a law or regulation, and is unable to effectively protect human subjects＇ rights. In this context, China beefs up its legal protection of clinical trial subjects.

Rethinking the History and Theory of Jus Publicum Universal： The Formation of China as a ＂Semi-Civilized＂ Legal Subject

Much of the existing scholarship on the universalization of nineteenth-century international law has framed it in terms of the imperial West＇s domination of non-Western societies. This article complicates and qualifies this conventional state-centric narrative by investigating the juridical, capitalist production of China as a ＂semi-civilized＂ international legal subject. It examines the foundational modern Sino-British/Western commercial and extraterritorial treaties, as well as the treatises of a new professional class of British international lawyers--James Lorimer （1818-90）, John Westlake （1828-1913）, William Edward Hall （1835-94）, T. E. Holland （1835-1926）, Thomas Lawrence （1849-1920）, and Lassa Oppenheim （1849-1920）. The juridical production of China as a ＂semi-civilized＂ legal subject throws into relief the dual capitalist nature and significance of the universalization of nineteenth-century international law. On the one hand, this ＂civilized＂ legal discourse underwrote a novel liberal conception of a universal international law （jus publicum universal） within which China was formally included as a quasi-legal subject. On the other hand, it also underwrote a particularistic, Euro-centric international law, which excluded China from its global domain and denied it basic sovereign rights. In this way also, ＂civilized＂ international law justified both formal equality in European- non-European treaty relations, as well as the real substantive inequality of these international exchanges of rights and obligations. Building on the critical theoretical work of Evgeny Pashukanis （1891-1937）, this article argues that a non-orthodox Marxist social theory of legal forms is best suited to explain the abstract, liberal universalism of nineteenth-century ＂civilized＂ international law and the contradictory forms of legal and jurisprudential discourse it made available and rendered normatively meaningful to international law practitioners. Through this Marxist theory, moreover, I shall relate said contradictory discourse to modern commodity exchange practices.