Over the five years since the implementation of Book Four Personality Rights of the Civil Code of the People’s Republic of China, it has vigorously promoted sound lawmaking, strict law enforcement, impartial administration of justice, and the observance of law by all, thereby advancing the rule of law in China. The implementation of Book Four Personality Rights has given effect to the people-centered human rights philosophy and has substantially strengthened human rights protection. It has provided a governance framework for Internet governance and the development of the digital economy, established legal guarantees for the healthy development of artificial intelligence, and set baseline rules for the advancement of biotechnology. Furthermore, it has facilitated the development of an independent knowledge system of civil law in China. Nevertheless, there remain several key and challenging issues in the implementation of Book Four Personality Rights. To fully realize its effectiveness and better protect human dignity and personal liberty, it is necessary to refine and improve relevant rules through the formulation of corresponding judicial interpretations based on a synthesis of judicial experience.

The balancing of interests approach introduced by Article 998 of the Civil Code of the People’s Republic of China does not completely free the normative system of determining civil liability for infringements of personality rights from the constraints of the elements of liability theory, nor does it fully adopt the position of the dynamic system theory. Based on distinguishing between material and non-material personality rights, between specific and general personality rights, and on whether there exist predefined typical types of infringing acts within non-material personality rights, Article 998 differentiates between the elements of liability and the balancing of interests, the two methods of legal effect evaluation, in determining civil liability for infringements of personality rights. For material personality rights that have a clearly defined connotation and extension, and that enjoy self-sufficiency in their exercise, a strict elements of liability approach is adopted for determining liability for infringements. Only in exceptional cases where the law provides specific regulations or under other exceptional circumstances are judges allowed to exercise discretion in balancing the interests to determine the corresponding civil liability. For non-material personality rights, which possess strong social attributes and often face conflicts of interest, the determination of liability is based on the existence of specific factual elements, particularly the presence of pre-defined typical infringing acts. This distinguishes between the domains where the legal effects of corresponding actions are primarily evaluated through the elements of liability and the domains where the legal effects are primarily evaluated through the balancing of interests approach.

With the promulgation and implementation of the Civil Code of the People’s Republic of China (hereinafter the Civil Code), China has entered the civil code era. In alignment with the enforcement of Book Five Marriage and Family, national legislative, administrative, and judicial authorities have undertaken systematic efforts to review, revise, and supplement laws, regulations, and judicial interpretations. These include the promulgation and implementation of the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Family Education Promotion, among others. In Chinese academic community, the implementation of Book Five Marriage and Family has spurred deeper theoretical research on key issues, such as its coordination and application with other Books of the Civil Code, the reference application of agreements concerning personal relationships, and systems governing marital property and debts. The extent to which the law should intervene in marital and familial relations represents the most fundamental and critical value judgment in this domain. This issue necessitates profound, forward-looking reflection based on a review of history and a summation of current realities.

Book Six Succession of the Civil Code of the People’s Republic of China (hereinafter the Civil Code) introduces three new substantive systems: establishing the two-stage mechanism for the transfer of real rights in the estate, creating the estate administrator system, and enriching the rules on forms of wills. These systems represent fundamental institutional frameworks that cannot be adequately refined through judicial interpretation and therefore, necessitate legislative intervention. To preserve the legal traditions developed since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, Book Six Succession of the Civil Code maintains the existing order of intestate succession, refrains from adopting the statutory reserved share system, and excludes the collation system. The objectives of substitute succession can be achieved through the conditional juristic act system; the functions served by subsequent succession may likewise be fulfilled through the right of habitation and estate trust arrangements. Joint wills are merely formal combinations of two wills as unilateral juristic acts, with conditional correlation between the wills being justifiable only in exceptional cases like mutual wills, and in most scenarios, such conditional correlation proves untenable. Therefore, based on considerations of legal interpretation techniques, Book Six Succession of the Civil Code does not incorporate these three systems.

As a restrictive principle of protecting the environmental public welfare, the Green Principle is enshrined in the Civil Code of the People’ s Republic of China, which remedies the lack of obligation norms for persons of the civil law to engage in civil activities to protect the ecological environment. However, in judicial application, the conflict between the environmental public welfare and private rights and interests such as real rights, creditor’ s claims and the right to inheritance is often formed. The theoretical root of the conflict is the inherent structural tension between the functional orientation of the Green Principle and the function of private law principles. The practical cause is that some judicial adjudicators mistakenly protect individual environmental elements contained in private rights and interests as the environmental public welfare. The identification and definition of the environmental public welfare and the discovery of genuine environmental public welfare constitute a necessary prerequisite for coordinating the conflict of legal interests. To coordinate the conflict between the environmental public welfare and private rights and interests, it is necessary to use the principle of proportionality, so that the environmental public welfare should be reviewed for appropriateness, necessity and balancing when restricting private rights and interests. When private rights and interests give way to the environmental public welfare under legal circumstances, the loss of private rights and interests should be appropriately compensated; regarding the compensation for the loss of private rights and interests, not only should the conditions required for compensation be stipulated, but also a reasonable compensation standard should be determined.