Dr Yucong Wang

With the increasing aging of the Chinese population, the issue of safeguarding the welfare of older adults has emerged in social governance. Currently, the primary strategy to address this issue is the guardianship system, which is plagued with various challenges in judicial practice. Through two consecutive and contingent studies, for the first time, this research investigated the status quo of China's guardianship disputes involving older adult wards, analysed the missing role of social workers during the civil litigation process of these disputes, and identified the subtypes of disputes to which judicial social work could contribute. In the first study, 12 members of a district court of Shanghai who have dealt with such disputes were interviewed to explore the potential roles of social workers. Findings highlight the prospects of social workers serving as assessors and conveners during court hearings, supervisors and moderators after the court hearing, and facilitators and carers throughout the litigation process. In the second study, 16 cases of guardianship disputes involving incapacitated older adult wards were extracted from this court through systematic sampling and processed with crisp-set qualitative comparative analysis. Findings reveal the types of cases in which social workers should intervene. This article advocates for involving professionally trained social workers in China's civil court setting to safeguard incapacitated older adults' welfare further.

China's OBOR Initiative charts a path for trade and investment cooperation between China and States along the OBOR. Indirect expropriation stands as a crucial issue for the successful implementation of the OBOR initiative. This mainly owes to the large size of investment projects and investment funds, scant regulation of indirect expropriation in the IIAs signed between China and OBOR States, and the diverse political and economic environments of these many States. This article examines the definition and identification standards of indirect expropriation under OBOR IIAs. It will also reveal that indirect expropriation is poorly defined and insufficiently identified in most agreements. It is argued that OBOR IIAs should be revised to regulate indirect expropriation in such three aspects as preambular declaration of host State regulatory freedom, definitional clarity of indirect expropriation, and guidance for its identification. This approach would facilitate a more stable investment environment and contribute to the success of the OBOR initiative.