Recorded on March 3, 2021.
How Novel is China’s Use of International Economic Law?
About this event:
China’s approach to international economic law is increasingly studied and debated. Its use of “soft law” instruments such as memoranda of understanding and its penchant for creating new institutions such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank have led some to conclude that China is an innovator in international economic law. Law Professors Fabio Morosini and Michelle R. Sanchez-Badin, however, examine empirical data from Chinese investments in Brazil’s energy sector and find many similarities between China and Brazil in their choice of legal tools. What really sets China apart is the size of its economy, and therefore the greater impact its actions have on the existing legal order.
Related publications:
International Economic Law by Other Means: a three-level matrix of Chinese investments in Brazil’s Electric Power Sector by Michelle Ratton Sanchez-Badin & Fabio Morosini
About the speakers:
Fabio Morosini is an associate professor at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul School of Law and a research fellow at the National Council of Scientific and Technological Development under the Ministry of Science and Technology of Brazil. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Michigan Law School. He was a Hauser global research fellow at New York University School of Law. Professor Morosini holds a Ph.D. and an LL.M. from the University of Texas at Austin and a master's degree, with honors, from the University of Paris 1/ Paris' Institute of Political Sciences. Upon completion of his Ph.D., he was a post-doctoral fellow at the World Trade Organization. Professor Morosini has taught at the United Nations Regional Courses in International Law. His recent edited and co-edited books include Reconceptualizing International Investment Law from the Global South (CUP, 2018), Regulacao do Comercio e Investimento Estrangeiro (Saraiva, 2017), and Direito Internacional: Abordagens Criticas (Almedina, forthcoming).
Michelle R. Sanchez-Badin is an associate professor at the Getulio Vargas Foundation School of Law in Brazil, and one of the coordinators of the Centre on Global Law and Development at the law school. Professor Sanchez-Badin earned a Ph.D. in law and LL.B. from the School of Law of Universidade de São Paulo. She held researcher positions at the University of California at Irvine, the Brazilian Center of Analysis and Planning, and the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, and was a post-doctorate fellow at the Hauser Global Law School Program at New York University. She was one of the founding members of the Society of International Economic Law and is a co-director of the RED-DEI – the International Economic Law Network in Latin America.