I. Basic Information

Zhang Weihua is an assistant research fellow at CASS Institute of International Law. He received his Bachelor of Law (Economic Law) degree from Zhengzhou University in 1998, his Master of International Law degree from Zhengzhou University in 2004, and a Ph.D. in International Law from China University of Political Science and Law in 2008. Mr. Zhang has published widely in the field of international humanitarian law, international law of the sea, and aviation law.

II. Main Academic Viewpoints

1. The use of policy-oriented jurisprudence to analyze the legal system of diplomatic protection reveals that the actual operation of the diplomatic protection law is regard as a part of the global process of authoritative decision. Participants in the process of diplomatic protection (claimant states, respondent states, individuals and companies, international tribunals and arbitral tribunals, and other international organizations) play different roles in diplomatic protection, including intelligence, promotion or recommendation, prescription, invocation, application, termination and appraisal, etc. Traditional legal schools are unable to correctly apprise the status of ideas in law, some of them overemphasizing the importance of perspectives, and ignoring practical operations of law, while some others isolating perspectives from the concept of law. Policy-oriented schools regard both perspectives and operations as the essential characters of law. Perspectives of human rights have profoundly affected the authoritative decision-making process of diplomatic protection. Any state has to decide the specific strategy to be used in the process of diplomatic protection, including diplomatic methods and judicial procedures. All the means and methods to be used should be peaceful, and any use of force should pass the examination of the right to self-defense.

2. A Community with a Shared Future for Mankind is a theoretical innovation made by China for the establishment of a fair and equitable international order. Just as any other community, a Community with a Shared Future needs common values to bring its members together. To build a new model of relations featuring win-win cooperation, a Community with a Shared Future should attach great importance to the overall interests of mankind and take the protection of human dignity and human rights as its highest purpose and objective and human rights and freedoms as its common values. On the other hand, to build a Community with a Shared Future, we should reconstruct the concept and system of human rights from the perspective of developing countries, instead of from the perspective of Western powers.

3. China’s historic rights to the waters within the South Sea have been resource-based, and China has never imposed any restrictions on the freedom of navigation in that sea. China's historic rights to the South Sea are based on its territorial sovereignty over the South Sea Islands and its historical activities thereof, the essential elements of which are the special geographical features of the South Sea and China's economic needs for the resources thereof. China’s long-term navigation activities in the South China Sea do not generate exclusive rights. The South China Sea has also been governed by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, just as any other area of the world oceans and seas. Different regime of navigation should apply to different areas of the South Sea, such as territorial seas, EEZs, internal waters, etc.

4. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) has evaded the issue of the legal status of EEZ. Both the claim that the EEZ still belongs to the high seas or the claim that it is a self-contained zone violate the provision of UNCLOS. The legal system of EEZ under UNCLOS has been a compromise among contracting Parties, and the Convention fails to give a clear answer to the question of whether the EEZ is a part of the High Seas, or to provide a definition on the EEZ. What it does is to stipulate that “the Exclusive Economic Zone is an area subject to the specific legal regime established by this part, under which the rights and jurisdiction of the coast State and the rights and freedoms of the other States are governed by the relevant provisions of this Convention”. Therefore, the legal status of the EEZ is actually defined through the precise definition of the legal characters of the rights, freedoms and obligations of the coastal State or other States. According to the Convention, the rights and jurisdictions of the coastal State are rights of sovereignty, while the freedoms of the other States are freedoms of high sea.

5. Problems arising from the freedom of navigation in EEZ should be resolved in accordance with the relevant provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and may not be inferred from the fact that the exclusive economic zone belongs to “international waters” or “national jurisdictions”. The regime of EEZ under UNCLOS is a delicate balance between the sovereign rights and jurisdiction of the coastal State and the rights and freedoms of other States. Any issue concerning EEZ should be resolved in accordance with Part V of UNCLOS. Neither "international waters" nor "national waters" have emerged in UNCLOS. Any question of freedom of navigation should be resolved in accordance with the relevant provisions of UNCLOS (especially Article 58).

III. Main Publications

1. New Theory of Diplomatic Protection Law, China University of Political Science and Law Press, Beijing, 2012;

2.“The Origins and Evolution of the 1977 Additional Protocols to the 1949 Geneva Conventions”, Human Rights, 6 (2018);

3. "The Human Rights Dimension in Building a Community with a Shared Future for Mankind", Human Rights, 5 (2017);

4. "Suggestions on Revising Civil Aviation Law (Draft Articles): From Perspective of International Civil Aviation Security Conventions ", Journal of Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (Social Science Edition), 1 (2017);

5. "Freedom of Navigation in the South China Sea Waters", Journal of Hainan University (Humanities & Social Science),6 (2016);

6. “1949 Geneva Conventions, the Compilation and Development of Basic Standards of Humanitarian Law”, Human Rights, 5 (2016);

7.“On the Obligation of ‘Due Regard’ in the Exclusive Economic Zone”, Chinese Review of International Law, 5 (2015);

8. "On the Legal Status and Freedom of Overflight over the Exclusive Economic Zone", Global Law Review, 1 (2015);

9. “The Doctrine of “Clean-hands” in Diplomatic Protection”, Chinese Yearbook of International Law, 2009.