International Trade Lawmaking @ Beijing Normal University

On August 21 afternoon, as a CIETAC arbitrator of almost 20 years, Prof. Xue was invited by the CCPIT Legal Affairs Department to give a public virtual lecture for the legal officers based in Beijing Headquarter, foreign missions and enterprises on the “Legal Issues in Alternative Dispute Resolution for Intellectual Property Rights”. Prof. Xue talked about the latest developments in the Chinese intellectual property legal systems and the advantage of resolving intellectual property disputes through arbitration and other alternative disputed resolution mechanism. Prof. Xue especially explained the issues of arbitrability of intellectual property disputes under the Chinese laws and compared with the other jurisdictions. Enforcement of arbitral awards is another key issue. Prof. Xue explained the enforcement issues of monetary and injunctive arbitral remedies through judicial system. Domain Name Dispute Resolution and E-Commerce Platform Online Dispute Resolution were the also addressed by Prof. Xue at the second half of the Lecture. Prof. Xue actively engaged with the audience through responding all the practical questions raised by the Legal Officers from Beijing, London and other cities. Chinese IP arbitration is expected to be pushed to the higher level of development through the new IP Arbitration Commission that is being constructed by the CCPIT.

Prof. Xue was invited to present at the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) virtual expert group meeting on National Policy Framework for Cross-border Paperless Trade on 20 August 2020. The meeting identified the essential building blocks and attributes (legal and regulatory environments, both national and agency level) for the national policy framework; and helped to develop a template that could accommodate different models and varying degree of cross-border paperless trade measures developed at country level in the ambit of implementation of the Framework Agreement on Facilitation of Cross-border Paperless Trade in Asia and the Pacific. In the presentation, Prof. Xue emphasized the importance of studies on the cross-border data flow and the mutual recognition criteria of CB paperless in domestic laws. In the written comments, Prof. Xue also pointed out the inappropriate omission of the Chinese E-Commerce Law entirely in the country study on Chinese paperless laws and regulations as well as the legal mistakes on implementation of the e-port system.

The “E-commerce Law of the People’s Republic of China”, effective from January 1, 2019, has played an important role in the transformation of economic mode, structural reform, stable growth, employment expansion, and people’s well-being. The Law regulates the establishment and performance of e-commerce operators, electronic contracts, electronic payments and express logistics, strengthens the protection of IPRs and consumers in e-commerce, creates the new legal rules on third-party e-commerce platforms, data development, market competition and dispute settlement. The Law has been nominated by the MOFCOM to the APEC PSU for case studies.

The selected case studies can help to showcase the underlying motivations for revising existing regulations or introducing new regulations, the process of doing so, as well as how the revision/introduction has contributed to the e-commerce landscape in the economy. In order to seek the understanding of the E-Commerce Law and allow for optimum experience sharing and learning among economies, the APEC PSU interviewed Prof. Xue, who had taken apart in the whole lawmaking process as one of the chief legal experts appointed by the National People’s Congress. The Interview was conducted virtually via Microsoft Teams on August 12, 2020.

During the Interview, Prof. Xue explained the situation before the enactment of the E-Commerce Law, the reasons/motivations for the decision to enact the E-Commerce Law and the problem that the E-Commerce Law was designed to address. Prof. Xue elaborated the legislative process of enacting the E-Commerce Law and internationalized multi-stakeholder participation in the lawmaking process. Prof. Xue especially addressed the benefits brought by the Law to various stakeholders (e.g., businesses, consumers) and effectiveness of the Law. With the advancement of the new technologies like AI, blockchain and digital currencies and enactment of new laws (such as the Civil Code), the E-Commerce Law may be revised for improvement in the future. Prof. Xue emphasized that the Case Studies would facilitate the information exchange on best practices, capacity building and inter-economy comparative studies for common rules on e-commerce.