The Study On Unification Of China-ASEAN Civil Justice Assistance System

With China-ASEAN Free Trade Area fully launched, cooperation between China and ASEAN members in various fields has been enlarged and developed, especially economic and trade. Expanding trade activities also bring in more disputes as more of commercial cases have been reported between China and ASEAN in recent years. Various factors, such as service abroad of documents, international cooperation in civil matters, cross-border investigation, and foreign enforcement of civil judgements, would greatly affect the speed and the conduct of trail and the effectiveness of the judgement. However, civil judicial assistance on cross-border issues between China and ASEAN nations is relatively limited. There are only four countries, Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam and Laos, have signed bilateral treaties with China regarding cross-border civil judicial assistance so far. Still, the bilateral treaties require further development as there is a big difference in each country’s provisions and domestic law, preventing to achieve the cooperation in the practice.Therefore, this article is committed to building a unified China-ASEAN civil judicial assistance system. In the context of gradual transition from bilateral agreements to a multilateral convention unified civil judicial assistance, using comparative analysis, literature research, and from macro to micro comprehensive analysis, this paper made some suggestions about how to unify and improve the system of civil judicial assistance between China and ASEAN. The paper is divided into four parts:The introduction analyzes current problems of international civil judicial assistance between China and ASEAN members, indicating insufficient mechanisms and difficulties to implement. The necessity of unify and improve civil judicial assistance between China and ASEAN countries is demonstrated by showing research results in the field.The first part introduces basic theory of international judicial assistance in civil, Including the concept and scope and basic principles international judicial assistance in civil, as well as the basis for international judicial assistance in civil.The second part analyzes the necessity and feasibility of building a unified civil judicial assistance between China and ASEAN. Current deficits of international cooperation in civil matter have highlighted the need of developing a civil judicial assistance framework. Constructing a multilateral legal assistance framework is feasible based on long term cooperative history between China and ASEAN countries, existing legal agreements, and successful resolution samples on other regional disputes. Several major issues of building a unified China-ASEAN legal assistance framework are analyzed.The third part analyzes the mode selection of unifing China-ASEAN civil justice assistance system. Through a comparative analysis of three representative current unified model of civil judicial assistance legislation, considering a gradual transition from bilateral agreements to multilateral convention unified civil judicial assistance is currently a more suitable legislative model for China-ASEAN Free Trade Area.The fourth part constructes and completes the specific system of civil judicial assistance between China and ASEAN under the framework of the transition from bilateral agreements to multilateral conventions proposed above. Including extraterritorial reach extraterritorial evidence, and the recognition of foreign court judgments in civil and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards. We should especially take the rules of foreign recognition and enforcement of court judgments into Unified China-ASEAN civil judicial assistance system. In view of reaching a comprehensive multilateral conventions civil judicial assistance more difficult, we can try to reach a specialized convention about the each content of civil judicial assistance system.The concluding part summarizes the full text. This part also further elaborates views about seeking ways to coordinate ASEAN countries to establish a unified system that solves cross-border civil disputes. The United States demonstration method is a good learning example but the process will require each country to adjust and modify its own demotic law. Finally, special attention should be paid when design and improve the legislation framework.