Originally from World Arbitration And Mediation Review (WAMR)

I. INTRODUCTION

In countries with developing economies, governments focus more on growth than on building robust legal systems. Yet longterm, sustainable economic growth requires a sound and effective legal foundation to meet a country’s economic and social needs. In the case of China, the country’s extraordinarily high growth during the past three decades has far outpaced its ability and capacity to establish a commensurate framework for the rule of law. The disparity between prevailing business practices and appropriate legal processes must be drastically reduced in order to forestall further, growing threats of conflicts, domestically as well as internationally. In practice, the Supreme People’s Court of China (the “SPC”) plays a crucial role in addressing that situation, and the lower Chinese People’s Courts1 are also important participants in remedying the shortcomings of and filling the gaps in China’s current legal policies, structure, and processes.