China’s Stance on the Normativity of International Climate Change Law: An Interactional Account

Existing analytical accounts of China’s interactions with international law are underdeveloped. This article proposes the use of an interactional model to explain the normativity of international law from three perspectives: shared understandings, normative qualities of international law, and the reception of individual countries to these normative qualities. Furthermore, the interactional model is used to explain how conceptions of the normativity of international climate change law are developed in China. It finds that China has accepted the common responsibility system under an enhanced transparency framework, while adhering to the facilitative nature of international commitments to accommodate the needs of developing countries and stringently insisting on obligations of support from developed countries being met. In this, China’s position on the normative qualities of international climate change law is influenced by its international identities, power status, national interests, and domestic understandings of anthropogenic climate change. The interactional account that follows implies that future research on China’s interactions with international law should be cautious of both Western centrism and Chinese exceptionalism and consider both the legitimacy of international law and China’s own domestic context.