Rewriting the Global Legal Map? China, the Indo-Pacific, and the [R]evolution of International Legal Order — ABILA International Law Weekend 2026 — PART 4 – Opening Remarks: Who Is Rewriting the Global Legal Map? Power, Institutions, Legal Pluralism, and International Legal Change
On October 24, 2026, I had the pleasure of chairing and moderating the panel “Rewriting the Global Legal Map? China, the Indo-Pacific, and the [R]evolution of International Legal Order” at Fordham University School of Law in New York City, during International Law Weekend 2026, organized by the American Branch of the International Law Association (ABILA).
The session was sponsored by the ABILA Committee on International Law, China, and the Reconfiguration of the Global Order, which I chair.
In Part 3 of this series, I provided a comprehensive account of the panel, including the contributions of Gregory Shaffer, Keith J. Hand, and Carrie Shu Shang, our exchanges, and the audience discussion.
In this fourth installment, I return to the conceptual framework developed for my opening remarks, which guided the organization of the panel and helped connect the participants’ different perspectives.
At the center of that framework was a question:
What changes in international law when the distribution of global power changes?
This question invites us to examine the transformation of international legal order beyond the familiar narratives of China’s rise, U.S.–China competition, or the emergence of a multipolar world.
The challenge is to understand whether geopolitical transformations are changing the actors participating in international law, redistributing authority within existing institutions, or modifying the rules and practices through which international legal order is constituted.
These developments are related, but they should not be treated as equivalent.
1. Changing Participants, Changing Authority, or Changing Rules?
The growing influence of China, the transformation of the Indo-Pacific, and the development of new international economic and infrastructure relationships raise fundamental questions about the structure and legitimacy of international law.
However, a change in the distribution of economic or geopolitical power does not automatically establish a new international legal order.
I suggested distinguishing among three possibilities.
First, new participants may become increasingly influential within existing institutions.
China’s extensive participation in the World Trade Organization, international arbitration, and investment relations demonstrates that changes in global power may take place through institutions whose underlying legal architecture remains substantially intact.
Second, authority may be redistributed within established legal arrangements.
Institutions may retain familiar procedures and legal instruments while the actors exercising influence over their interpretation, implementation, and development change.
Third, the substantive rules and institutional practices governing international relations may themselves evolve.
New regulatory approaches, domestic legislative measures, cross-border infrastructure arrangements, and competing interpretations of international legal obligations can reshape how international authority operates.
These transformations may occur simultaneously. Nevertheless, they require different analytical approaches.
For example, the creation of a new arbitration venue does not necessarily replace the international framework governing the recognition and enforcement of arbitral awards.
Similarly, a government may defend international adjudication in trade disputes while developing domestic legislation to resist external economic or political pressure.
Cross-border infrastructure projects may involve numerous national jurisdictions and contractual arrangements without establishing a common regional legal order.
The central question is therefore not simply whether institutions are new or old, but whether the distribution, exercise, and accountability of legal authority are changing.
2. Looking Beyond the State as a Unitary Actor
Another important aspect of my introductory framework concerned the need to examine the actors operating within and across states.
International legal scholarship frequently refers to China, the United States, or the European Union as if each represented a single, coherent institutional position.
Yet governments, regulatory agencies, businesses, lawyers, academics, and other actors may pursue different objectives and respond to different institutional incentives.
This is particularly important for understanding China’s evolving relationship with international law.
Professor Gregory Shaffer’s research, developed with Ji Li and Henry Gao, provides a valuable analytical framework for examining these dynamics.
Their work on China’s engagement with international economic dispute settlement highlights the importance of disaggregating the state and identifying the actors shaping participation in commercial arbitration, WTO disputes, and investment arbitration.
Such an approach helps explain why investment in existing international institutions can coexist with increasing political centralization and the growing importance of national-security considerations.
This coexistence also demonstrates why participation in established legal institutions should not automatically be interpreted as evidence of sustained political cooperation.
The interests of institutional participants may diverge, and the conditions supporting cooperation may change.
3. Domestic Law as an Instrument of International Competition
Professor Keith J. Hand’s research introduces another dimension: the growing use of domestic legislation as an instrument of external political and economic competition.
Legal frameworks governing sanctions, countermeasures, export controls, and investment restrictions increasingly influence relations among states and the activities of private actors.
The legal form of these measures matters.
Domestic legislation can provide governmental institutions with authority to impose restrictions, establish procedures for their implementation, and frame particular measures as responses to violations of international norms.
Yet the relationship between legality and geopolitical competition is complex.
States may adopt similar legislative instruments while pursuing opposing strategic objectives.
Indeed, intensifying competition may encourage legal borrowing, as governments develop regulatory mechanisms inspired by those adopted elsewhere.
This raises an important question:
Does the convergence of legal instruments indicate the emergence of shared legal norms, or can it also reflect the institutionalization of geopolitical confrontation?
The distinction between legal convergence and political cooperation became one of the central themes of our panel discussion.
4. Transnational Legal Learning and the Circulation of Legal Models
Professor Carrie Shu Shang’s scholarship offers another perspective on the circulation of legal norms and practices.
Her work examines how transnational legal relationships develop and adapt in periods of commercial and political conflict.
An important dimension of this research concerns the role of legal professionals, businesses, and other private actors in transmitting regulatory practices across jurisdictions.
International legal learning does not depend exclusively on formal agreements between governments.
It can also occur through commercial transactions, professional networks, technological relationships, contractual arrangements, and institutional experimentation.
This raises questions about how foreign legal models are incorporated into domestic systems and how their meaning may change during that process.
It also invites closer examination of the relationship between formal legal institutions and commercial custom.
As international legal practices become increasingly institutionalized, some forms of private ordering may gain authority while others may lose influence.
Consequently, we need to examine not only whether legal models circulate but also which actors select them, how they are transformed, and whose interests their adoption serves.
5. Legal Pluralism, Selective Adaptation, and the Belt and Road Initiative
My own research approaches these questions through legal pluralism, legal transplantation, regulatory competition, and the interaction between international economic law and infrastructure governance.
In particular, research developed with Davide Giacomo Zoppolato examines China’s evolving relationship with foreign legal models and the implications of this transformation for the Belt and Road Initiative.
Our article, “China’s Path to Modernization and Legal Pluralism: Transplants and the Belt and Road Initiative,” published in the Asian Journal of Law and Society, explores the processes through which legal arrangements circulate, are selectively adapted, and interact with existing institutional frameworks.
Legal transplantation should not be understood simply as the reproduction of legal rules developed in one jurisdiction within another.
Instead, receiving jurisdictions may select particular elements, modify their content, combine them with existing institutions, or adapt their implementation to domestic political and economic circumstances.
The result may be neither complete convergence nor complete divergence.
Rather, different legal arrangements may coexist, overlap, or compete.
Legal pluralism provides a framework for understanding these processes without assuming that international legal development necessarily produces institutional uniformity.
China’s Belt and Road Initiative illustrates this complexity.
BRI-related infrastructure and investment relationships do not necessarily involve the exportation of a single Chinese legal model.
Instead, they frequently depend upon combinations of national legislation, bilateral arrangements, commercial contracts, investment protections, and project-specific governance mechanisms.
The resulting institutional arrangements may differ significantly across countries and sectors.
6. Whose Choice? Unequal Bargaining Power and the Agency of Host States
The circulation of legal models also raises important questions about consent, bargaining power, and institutional accountability.
A state may formally agree to a legal arrangement without possessing the same economic resources or negotiating alternatives as its counterpart.
The existence of formal consent should therefore be distinguished from the conditions under which that consent is obtained.
This distinction becomes particularly important in infrastructure and development relationships.
Host states may have different capacities to negotiate investment conditions, modify regulatory arrangements, or enforce environmental and social safeguards.
Similarly, participation by national authorities does not necessarily guarantee meaningful involvement by local governments, businesses, or affected communities.
These considerations complicate the language of voluntary legal transplantation.
An arrangement may be formally voluntary while the practical alternatives available to one party remain substantially constrained by unequal bargaining power.
Consequently, assessing the legitimacy of institutional transformation requires examining the distribution of authority both during negotiations and throughout implementation.
The same questions arise in international energy governance.
Research developed with Davide Giacomo Zoppolato and Tivadar Ötvös on China’s Belt and Road Initiative and European energy independence demonstrates how infrastructure arrangements may connect multiple jurisdictions without establishing a unified regulatory order.
Their implementation depends on specific contractual, institutional, and political relationships.
In this context, the agency of host states and affected communities is particularly important.
The central question is not simply which country provides investment or infrastructure financing.
It is also who retains the ability to change the rules, invoke safeguards, challenge decisions, and obtain remedies once an investment has been made.
7. Four Questions for Understanding International Legal Transformation
To connect these different perspectives, I proposed four questions as a framework for the panel:
Who makes the operative decision?
Understanding international legal change requires identifying the actors who actually exercise authority.
These may include governmental institutions, regulatory agencies, international organizations, private companies, arbitral institutions, courts, or local authorities.
Through what legal mechanism?
The institutional form through which authority is exercised matters.
Domestic legislation, international treaties, commercial contracts, investment arrangements, and regulatory decisions may produce different legal consequences even when they respond to similar geopolitical pressures.
Who can contest it?
The existence of legal authority does not necessarily guarantee meaningful accountability.
We must examine whether affected actors can challenge decisions, participate in institutional processes, or obtain effective remedies.
Who bears the costs?
Finally, legal arrangements must be examined in light of their distributional consequences.
Different actors may receive the benefits of regulatory cooperation, technological development, or infrastructure investment, while others bear the economic, environmental, political, or social costs.
These questions connect international economic dispute settlement, foreign-related legislation, technological competition, commercial regulation, and energy infrastructure without treating them as interchangeable legal regimes.
They also allow us to move beyond general descriptions of international legal change toward a more precise examination of its institutional and distributive consequences.
8. Reconfiguration Rather Than a Simple Rupture
The broader purpose of my opening framework was to encourage a discussion that would avoid treating the transformation of international legal order as an inevitable choice between continuity and rupture.
Different legal sectors may evolve in different directions.
New institutions may reinforce established international arrangements rather than replace them.
Regulatory borrowing may produce similarities between legal systems without generating political agreement.
Commercial cooperation may persist alongside diplomatic confrontation.
Infrastructure investment may expand transnational economic relationships while leaving substantial differences among participating legal systems.
These developments suggest that the reconfiguration of international legal order is not necessarily a uniform process.
It may involve overlapping patterns of cooperation, conflict, adaptation, institutional continuity, and competition.
Understanding those patterns requires attention to the actors participating in legal development, the mechanisms through which legal authority is exercised, and the consequences for those affected by the resulting arrangements.
Ultimately, the central question is not simply whether China, the United States, or other powers are rewriting the global legal map.
It is also who participates in that process, which legal forms become authoritative, who can contest their application, and whether changes in international legal ordering produce greater participation and accountability.
These were the questions I hoped would connect the contributions of our panelists and provide a foundation for the discussion.
They remain equally relevant to the continuing work of the ABILA Committee on International Law, China, and the Reconfiguration of the Global Order and the International Law Association Study Group on International Law, Global Challenges, and the Impact of Emerging Powers on Global Governance, which I also chair.
Continuing the Series
This article is Part 4 of my series on International Law Weekend 2026.
In Part 3, I presented a comprehensive account of our panel and the exchanges among the participants.
The next installments will examine the contributions of Gregory Shaffer, Keith J. Hand, and Carrie Shu Shang, in greater detail, followed by an analysis of my own substantive interventions during the panel.
The series examines China’s evolving role in international law, geopolitical competition, transnational legal ordering, legal pluralism, regulatory convergence and conflict, and the implications of these transformations for international economic law and global governance.
Previously Published and Current Installments
PART 1 — Rewriting the Global Legal Map? China, the Indo-Pacific, and the [R]evolution of International Legal Order — Panel Announcement and Intellectual Framework
Introduction to the panel, its objectives, participating scholars, principal research questions, and relevant academic publications.
PART 2 — International Law Weekend 2026 at Fordham Law School: Reflections on ABILA, International Scholarly Cooperation, and Emerging Initiatives
Reflections on my participation in ILW 2026, my role as Chair of the ABILA Committee on International Law, China, and the Reconfiguration of the Global Order, and the development of the International Law Association Study Group on International Law, Global Challenges, and the Impact of Emerging Powers on Global Governance.
PART 3 — Rewriting the Global Legal Map? The Full Panel Discussion: China, Transnational Legal Orders, Geopolitical Competition, and Global Governance
A comprehensive account of the October 24 panel, bringing together the principal arguments of Gregory Shaffer, Keith J. Hand, Carrie Shu Shang, and my own contributions, including the moderated exchanges, audience questions, and broader implications for international law.
PART 4 — Opening Remarks: Who Is Rewriting the Global Legal Map?
The conceptual framework developed for my introductory remarks, examining the distinction between changes in participation, shifts in institutional authority, and transformations in international legal rules and practices.
Forthcoming Installments
PART 5 — Gregory Shaffer: China’s Multi-Actor Engagement with Transnational Legal Orders
An examination of Professor Shaffer’s opening presentation and subsequent interventions on China’s participation in commercial arbitration, WTO dispute settlement, investment arbitration, institutional adaptation, and the growing importance of geoeconomics.
PART 6 — Keith J. Hand: Legal Struggle, Sanctions, and China’s Countermeasure Legislation
An analysis of Professor Hand’s contribution concerning China’s foreign-related legislation, sanctions, extraterritorial countermeasures, legal borrowing, national-security considerations, and the relationship between legal competition and diplomatic negotiation.
PART 7 — Carrie Shu Shang: Transnational Legal Learning, Technology Competition, and Regulatory Adaptation
A discussion of Professor Shang’s perspectives on regulatory learning, technological competition, cross-border legal diffusion, export controls, technology licensing, private commercial actors, and the evolving role of Chinese arbitration institutions.
PART 8 — Paolo Davide Farah: Legal Pluralism, Regulatory Competition, and the Reconfiguration of International Legal Order
A detailed examination of my substantive interventions throughout the discussion, connecting legal pluralism, selective legal transplantation, regulatory competition, the Belt and Road Initiative, energy governance, public and private authority, unequal bargaining power, host-state participation, and geoeconomics.
Continuing the Discussion
Taken together, these eight installments seek to provide a comprehensive account of the panel’s intellectual foundations, the contributions of its participants, and the broader questions emerging from our discussion.
The series also contributes to the continuing scholarly activities of the ABILA Committee on International Law, China, and the Reconfiguration of the Global Order and the International Law Association Study Group on International Law, Global Challenges, and the Impact of Emerging Powers on Global Governance.
Through these complementary initiatives, I hope to encourage further dialogue on how geopolitical transformations, emerging powers, competing regulatory frameworks, and evolving institutional arrangements are reshaping international law—and on whether these developments represent a rupture, an evolution, or a more complex reconfiguration of the international legal order.
Selected Bibliographical References
Zoppolato, Davide Giacomo, and Paolo Davide Farah. “China’s Path to Modernization and Legal Pluralism: Transplants and the Belt and Road Initiative.” Asian Journal of Law and Society 12, no. 2 (2025): 109–144. Cambridge University Press.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5215873
Farah, Paolo Davide, Davide Giacomo Zoppolato, and Tivadar Ötvös. “China’s Belt and Road Initiative and Its Impact on the Energy Independence of the European Union.” Asian Journal of Law and Society 12, no. 2 (2025): 274–303. Cambridge University Press.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5215879
Shaffer, Gregory, Ji Li, and Henry Gao. “China and International Economic Dispute Settlement: Disaggregating the State.” Journal of International Economic Law (2026).
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6576238
Hand, Keith J. “Waging External Struggle through Law: China’s Evolving Legal Strategies and Pelosi’s Taiwan Visit.” UC San Diego 21st Century China Center Special Report (2022).
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4208433
Shang, Carrie Shu. “US-China Transnational Law in a Time of Trade Crisis.” Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 28, no. 2 (2021): 139–204.
https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/ijgls/vol28/iss2/4
International Law Weekend 2026
October 22–24, 2026
Fordham University School of Law, New York City
Panel: Rewriting the Global Legal Map? China, the Indo-Pacific, and the [R]evolution of International Legal Order
Sponsored by: ABILA Committee on International Law, China, and the Reconfiguration of the Global Order
Chair, Moderator, and Discussant: Paolo Davide Farah
Participating Speakers: Gregory Shaffer, Keith J. Hand, Carrie Shu Shang
#InternationalLaw #ILW2026 #ABILA #InternationalLawAssociation #China #IndoPacific #GlobalGovernance #InternationalEconomicLaw #LegalPluralism #RegulatoryCompetition #LegalTransplants #BeltAndRoadInitiative