Research biography

My research interests include history of international law, human rights theory, law and technology, and critical legal studies. Combining these fields, I aim to develop a more critical and holistic understanding about the historical and material conditions of the development of information technologies, the mutual constitution of information technology, international political economy and international law, and the distributive impact of information technology on socioeconomically disadvantage individuals and societies.

Research biography

I am currently developing a book project, provisionally entitled “Freedom of Information: Hegemony, Contestation, and International Law”. I investigate the historical formation of a dual-sided framework, which I call “rights+trade”, by which international law rules information since the Second World War. I argue that this framework, constituted by the dialectic relations between human rights regimes and the world trade regime, has become hegemonic in conceiving of and governing information and conceals inequalities and power asymmetries contributed by global information flows and new information technologies. This historical inquiry is driven by my concerns about the current development and use of digital technologies and their distributive and sociopolitical impact, especially in the Global South, and tries to understand the relationship between international law and information technologies and the way their interaction (re)produces inequality and domination.

This project has led to several spin-off projects, including the collaboration with Natalia Menéndez González (EUI) on the role of cities as norm entrepreneurs in contesting and creating data governance frameworks, and the collaboration with Dr. Min Jiang (UNC Charlott) and Prof. Luca Belli (FGV) on discouses and practices of digital sovereignty in BRICS countries.

In parallel with the book project, I am also interested in exploring China's role in the international legal order from the perspective of law and political economy.

Refereed journal articles

• Wanshu Cong, 'Contesting Freedom of Information: Capitalism, Development, and the Third World' (2023) Asian Journal of International Law, 13(1), 46-75. doi:10.1017/S2044251322000467
• Wanshu Cong and Johannes Thumfart, 'A Chinese Precursor to the Digital Sovereignty Debate: Digital Anti-Colonialism and Authoritarianism from the Post–Cold War Era to the Tunis Agenda' (2022) Global Studies Quarterly, 2(4), ksac059, https://doi.org/10.1093/isagsq/ksac059
• Wanshu Cong and Frédéric Mégret, '“International Shanghai” (1863-1941): Imperialism and Private Authority in the Global City' (2021) Leiden Journal of International Law, 34(4), 915-933. doi:10.1017/S0922156521000352.
• Wanshu Cong, 'From Pandemic Control to Data-Driven Governance: The Case of China’s Health Code' (2021) Frontier of Political Science (https://doi.org/10.3389/fpos.2021.627959)
• Wanshu Cong, 'Chinese Populism in the 1920s, Extraterritoriality and International Law' (2020) 17:2 Brazilian Journal of international Law 139-161.
• “Understanding Human Rights on the Internet: An Exercise of Translation?” (2017) 22 Tilburg Law Review 138-164.

Book chapters

• Wanshu Cong, “The spatial expansion of China’s digital sovereignty: Extraterritoriality and geopolitics” in: Min Jiang and Luca Belli (eds.), Digital Sovereignty in the BRICS Countries: Data, Infrastructure, and Services (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).
• Wanshu Cong and Johannes Thumfart, 'Cyber/information Sovereignty and the Internet’s first Decade in China: Academic debates and the official Bu Zhenglun,' in: Marina Timoteo, Barbara Verri and Riccardo Nanni (eds.), Quo Vadis, Sovereignty? New Conceptual and Regulatory Boundaries in the Age of Digital China (Springer, forthcoming)
• Wanshu Cong, ‘Levinas’ Anarchy, the Cunning State and International Law,’ in: Klaus Mathis and Luca Langensand (eds.), Dignity, Diversity, Anarchy (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2021): 255-277

Commissioned reports

• “Surveillance and Compliance (China)”, report for the project “Global Response to COVID-19” (available at: http://globalresponsescovid19.com/reports/2%20China%20Cong.pdf)

Other

• Wanshu Cong, 'Freedom of information, material conditions, and the ICCPR's stylistic choice', CIL Dialogues (15 May 2023), https://cil.nus.edu.sg/blogs/freedom-of-information-materials-conditions....
• Wanshu Cong, 'Marxism and China's Effort to Build "Foreign-Related Rule of Law"', LPE Project (24 April 2023), https://lpeproject.org/blog/marxism-and-chinas-effort-to-build-foreign-r...
• Wanshu Cong, 'The discursive performance of EU digital sovereignty: three co-performances,' Florence: European University Institute, 2021EUI MWP, 2021/07, Retrieved from Cadmus, European University Institute Research Repository, at: https://hdl.handle.net/1814/73307