Today’s international legal order and institutions, deeply infused with liberal and neoliberal values, are undergoing what many predict to be a seismic shift. In addition to domestic contestation within democracies, the current international order is being challenged by rising powers, most notably China, who are modifying existing institutional institutions as well as creating new ones that better fit their interests and world views. Scholars and policymakers have predicted that these actions will amount to one or more diverging normative visions on how societies should be organized, how power should be allocated, and what constitute the appropriate roles and values of international law. Drawing on interdisciplinary expertise, this roundtable explores how these competing visions actively shape the development of international law, norms, and institutional practices. The focus is on both the drawbacks and opportunities of these alternative normative visions. Are the current positive values and achievements of international law under threat, or will new visions also open up promising venues that can further the collective goal of human prosperity?

Speakers:

• Cai Congyan, Fudan University School of Law
• Jacques deLisle (moderator), University of Pennsylvania Carey School of Law
• Ingrid Wuerth, Vanderbilt Law School
• Angela Zhang, Hong Kong University Faculty of Law