Research

Since the establishment of the EU-China Strategic Partnership in 2003, the bilateral relationship between the EU and China has become increasingly comprehensive covering a wide range of economic, political and people-to-people areas of cooperation. EUPLANT focuses on an aspect of the relationship (i.e. the interactions between the Chinese and the European Union (EU) legal and judicial systems) which remains very much understudied even though it has arguably become a prominent area of cooperation in the EU-China Strategic Partnership and given rise to rule of law-based concerns. More particularly, EUPLANT assesses the extent to which legal transplants and enhanced judicial cooperation can lead to an increased regulatory convergence between the Chinese and EU legal frameworks. Against the background of what some regard as a deterioration of rule of law and increased pressures on civil society and the legal profession in China, EUPLANT assesses both the risks and opportunities of judicial and wider legal cooperation.

The EUPLANT focuses on two overarching themes.

1. The internationalization of EU Law and EU-China Relations:

• To uncover successes and failures of internationalisation of EU norms, standards, and procedures;
• To identify concrete cases of legal transplants in the interactions between the EU and the Chinese legal system;
• To assess the processes in which the EU has shaped the evolution of the Chinese legal system through natural diffusion, active values promotion, and voluntary borrowing; and
• To address the diffusion and defence of values central to the EU legal system in this context.

2.  EU-China Judicial Cooperation:

• To map the existing judicial cooperation mechanisms between China and EU Member States;
• To analyse and compare the scope and limitations of judicial cooperation mechanisms between China and EU Member States;
• To analyse the extent to which judicial cooperation between EU Member States and China allows to address the incompatibilities between legal and administrative systems; and
• To identify the human rights and rule of law risks inherent to judicial cooperation with China and how those risks can be mitigated by the Member States and the EU.

EUPLANT Final Report

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Working papers

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Publications

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The European Commission's support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents, which reflect the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.