International Economic Law without Human and Constitutional Rights? Legal Methodology Questions for my Chinese Critics

Democracy and constitutionalism are communitarian methodologies. My arguments for limiting market failures, governance failures, and related injustices in the global division of labour by using the universal recognition of human rights for reinterpreting the ‘international law of states’ as ‘multilevel governance of public goods’ protecting citizens—and by learning from republican, democratic, and cosmopolitan constitutionalism—have never pleaded for ‘radical individualism’ and ‘rights-absolutism’. This response to my Chinese critics uses 10 methodology and research questions for challenging their claim that Chinese traditions of Confucian ethics offer a sufficient substitute for the lack of democratic constitutionalism and of effective human rights law inside the People’s Republic of China. In view of the dangers of totalitarianism, Asian lawyers should participate in ‘JIEL debates’ on how Confucian ethics and communitarian legal traditions in many Asian countries can be reconciled with stronger protection of human rights in international economic law.