Effective or symbolic? A retrospective look at the performance of the China International Commercial Court

In recent years, numerous international commercial courts have been established to align dispute resolution mechanisms with the needs of international commerce. In June 2018, China entered this arena with the creation of the China International Commercial Court (CICC), a court specifically designed to facilitate international commercial dispute resolution and, in particular, solve disputes emerging from the One Belt One Road Initiative (BRI). However, the CICC has been less innovative than other international commercial courts. It has limited jurisdiction and relatively few international and arbitration-like features. Against this background, at the time of its creation, significant questions arose regarding the role the CICC would play within the dispute resolution market. This article considers the performance of the CICC over its first five years and empirically evaluates its performance compared to other commercial courts. An examination of the number of cases and their characteristics reveals that the international appeal of the CICC as a dispute resolution venue has been limited. Nevertheless, this article argues that the CICC can play a role in bolstering the ability of the Chinese legal system to address foreign-related disputes – namely, by producing guiding case law for situations that may come before the lower courts and by providing an institutional model that can be replicated at lower levels of the Chinese court structure.