Research on China’s marine governance legal system from the perspective of international rule alignment

This paper takes marine environmental protection as the research entry point and employs a mixed research approach integrating legal text analysis, clause comparison, case study analysis to systematically analyze the structural characteristics, implementation bottlenecks, and optimization paths of China’s marine governance legal system. After decades of development, China’s marine governance legal system has initially established a multi-level institutional framework with the Constitution as the fundamental guideline, specialized laws as the core, administrative regulations and local regulations as support, and international treaty obligations as external constraints. However, it still faces practical challenges such as insufficient legal coordination, imbalanced land-sea integration mechanisms and limited sustainable governance effectiveness. To address these issues, optimization solutions should be proposed from four aspects: top-level design, mechanism innovation, international response, and forward-looking planning. These include restructuring the legislative system at the top level to resolve the lack of basic laws and systemic deficiencies; establishing cross-departmental coordination mechanisms through land-sea integration to mitigate developmental conflicts; developing tiered enhancement strategies to address gaps in international rules; and proposing forward-looking institutional arrangements to tackle emerging challenges such as digital transformation and climate change. The research conclusions can provide theoretical references and practical pathways for improving China’s marine governance legal system and enhancing global marine ecological protection and sustainable development capabilities.