MA XUEJING/CHINA DAILY

Editor's note: Washington has been desperately trying to make Beijing the scapegoat for its failure to contain the novel coronavirus pandemic in the United States. Some US organizations and individuals have even filed lawsuits demanding compensation from China for "spreading" the virus in the US. Following is an excerpt from the commentary of Zhang Naigen, distinguished professor at Fudan University ,explaining why the lawsuits have neither legal nor factual validity:

After the COVID-19 outbreak in the US, some politicians, to fulfill their narrow political agendas and ignoring the safety and health of American citizens, have encouraged some individuals and organizations to file lawsuits against the Chinese government in a bid to divert domestic public attention from the US administration's failure to contain the virus.

According to US media reports, Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt has filed a lawsuit against China in the federal court of the state. Using information mainly from media reports, Schmitt has accused China of "making and transmitting" the virus, which runs counter to the "principle of sovereign equality" as enshrined in the United Nations Charter. The accusation is also incompatible with the sovereign immunity principle of international law, according to which a sovereign state is immune from all civil suit or criminal prosecution in another state.

The principle of sovereign immunity connotes that a sovereign state, unless it waives its immunity, is immune to the jurisdiction of foreign courts and the enforcement of foreign court orders. This is an important customary international law to regulate relations between sovereign states. The lawsuits filed in US courts against China are therefore inadmissible in international law－not least because all the measures China has taken to conduct the gene sequencing of the novel coronavirus and contain the outbreak are exactly what any sovereign state should do, and a court of another country has no jurisdiction over such actions.

There are no exceptions to sovereign immunity for states in any international convention. This means a court of one sovereign state has no jurisdiction over the actions of another sovereign state within its own territory, and shows the US lawsuits are an attempt to not only discredit the efforts of the Chinese government and the people to contain the epidemic, but also claim China does not enjoy sovereign immunity.

More important, the lawsuits－which are an interference in the internal affairs of China－expose the prejudice of some US politicians against China, the Communist Party of China and the country's political system.

(Zhang Naigen, distinguished professor at Fudan University, and vice-president of China Society of International Law.)