The Supreme People's Court (SPC) recently published a white paper to review the trials of maritime cases from 2015 to 2017 and clarifies the latest maritime adjudication rules.

The white paper has both Chinese and English versions and is divided into three parts.

The first part introduces the enforcement of maritime trials nationwide from 2015 to 2017.

Maritime courts, the high people's courts of where the maritime courts located, and the SPC around the country accepted 95,043 cases and concluded 92,598 ones from 2015 to 2017. The cases involved such fields as maritime and foreign related commerce, maritime administration, special procedures of maritime litigation and maritime enforcement.

The number of foreign-related cases was 6,070 with 5,740 concluded. and the number of cases involving Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan was 2,841 with 2,569 concluded.

China's major progress on strengthening maritime trial work to guarantee national strategies was introduced in the white paper's second part from eight aspects.

In the three years, SPC has issued four judicial documents to support the national strategies, including the Belt and Road Initiative, free trade pilot zone and the Yangtze River Economic Zone, according to the white paper.

The last part lists 16 typical maritime cases and concludes 16 adjudication rules on maritime trial entities and procedures to clarify the application of laws and international treaties, promotes the uniformity of refereeing standards, and guides the sound development of the industry.

Since the first white paper---China's Maritime Adjudication(1984-2014)--- was issued in 2014, it is the second time that the SPC issued such a white paper. It responds to the new demands in maritime jurisdiction in the new era, maintains the long-lasting transparency of maritime adjudication and presents China’s efforts and progress in integrating adjudication with international management.