How US-defined ‘international law’ becomes legitimized in the news media: BBC coverage of the case of the US against Huawei/Meng Wanzhou

Abstract

The US has ‘international’ laws, created domestically, which used to support national global interests, enforced by threats of exclusion from the dollar-based world trading system. These create problems for, and are contested by, governments around the world, Using Critical Discourse Analysis, this paper analyses BBC international news reporting on one case where these laws were used against the chief financial officer of Huawei in regard to breaking US sanctions against Iran. The case was dismissed as groundless in 2021. Reporting foregrounds drama, personalization and details of legal process, but never questions the nature of this ‘international law’.

Keywords

BBC critical discourse analysis journalism media and crime tariffs US-China trade war World Bank

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Ayson

(2020) NZ’s useful Huawei ambiguity. Available at: https://www.newsroom.co.nz/ideasroom/the-ban-that-isnt-new-zealand-and-huawei

Banna

(2017) The Long Arm of US Jurisdiction and International Law: Extraterritoriality against Sovereignty. Journal of Law, Policy and Globalization 60: 59

Belal

(2019) Uncertainty over the joint comprehensive plan of action: Iran the European Union and the United States. Policy Perspectives 16/1: 123–39

Breen

(2021) Corporations and US economic sanctions: The dangers of overcompliance. In Beaucillon

(Ed.). Research Handbook on Unilateral and Extraterritorial Sanctions (pp. 256–269) Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.

Buchanan

Zabala

(2017) Money laundering and legal compliance in the U.S. financial services industry: The case of Standard Chartered Bank. In Aßländer

M.S.

Hudson

(Eds.). The Handbook of Business and Corruption (pp. 255–278) Bingley: Emerald Publishing Limited.

Canals

Singla

(2020)The US-China technology conflict: an initial insight. Available at: https://www.caixabankresearch.com/en/node/8906/printable/print

Chamberlain

Keppel-Palmer

Reardon

, et al (2019) It is criminal: The state of magistrates’ court reporting in England and Wales. Journalism 22(9): 2404–2420.

Cheng

Machin

(2022) The law and critical discourse studies. Critical Discourse Studies 20(3): 243–255.

Chibnall

(1977) Law-and-order News: An Analysis of Crime Reporting in the British Press. Tavistock.

10.

Chow

Han

(2019) Brexit identities and British public opinion on China. International Affairs 95/6: 1369–1387

11.

Clifford

White

(2017) Media and Crime: Content Context and Consequence. Oxford University Press.

12.

Davies

(2020) UK security officials tell telcos to stock up on Huawei gear – report. Available at: https://telecoms.com/505112/uk-security-officials-tell-telcos-to-stock-up-on-huawei-gear-report/

13.

Dencik

(2013) What global citizens and whose global moral order? Defining the global at BBC World News. Global Media and Communication 9(2): 119–134.

14.

Donoghue

(2009) Reflections on the sociology of law: A rejection of law as ‘socially marginal’. International Journal of Law Crime and Justice 37(1–20): 51–63.

15.

Dumbrell

(2009) The US–UK special relationship: Taking the 21st-century temperature. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 11(1): 64–78.

16.

Efrat

(2021) Facing US extraterritorial pressure: American troops in foreign courts during the Cold War. Forthcoming. Journal of Politics. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1086/715254

17.

European Commission (2018) Updated Blocking Statute in support of Iran nuclear deal enters into force 6 August. Available at: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_18_4805

18.

Fairclough

(1992) Language and Power. Sage.

19.

Flowerdew

Richardson

(2017) The Routledge Handbook of Critical Discourse Studies. Taylor & Francis.

20.

Foucault

(1972) The Archaeology of Knowledge. Routledge.

21.

Fox

Van Sickel

Steiger

(2007) Tabloid Justice: Criminal Justice in an Age of Media Frenzy (2nd Edition). Lynne Rienner Publishers.

22.

Freifield

Stecklow

(2019) Exclusive: HSBC probe helped lead to U.S. charges against Huawei CFO. Available at: https://www.reuters.com/article/cbusiness-us-huawei-hsbc-exclusive-idCAKCN1QF1IA-OCABS

23.

Garcia

Arkerson

(2018) Crime Media and Reality: Examining Mixed Messages about Crime and Justice in Popular Media. Rowman & Littlefield.

24.

Gies

(2008) Law and the Media: The Future of an Uneasy Relationship. New York: Routledge.

25.

Haedicke

Schroeder

(2009) Foreign Corrupt Practices Act: two recent cases set new records for penalaties teach old lessons Jones & Walker ebulletin Corporate Compliance. Available at: http://www.joneswalker.com/ecommunications.html.

26.

Hans

(1990) Law and the media: An overview and introduction. Law and Human Behavior 14(5): 399–407.

27.

Hathaway

O A

Shapiro

(2011) Outcasting: Enforcement in Domestic and International Law. YALE L.J 121. 252, 258–260.

28.

Hinton

(2016) From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making Of Mass Incarceration in America. Harvard University Press.

29.

Holdren

Tucker

(2020) Marxist theories of Law past and present: A meditation occasioned by the 25th anniversary of Law labor and ideology. Law & Social Inquiry 45(4): 1142–1169.

30.

Holpuch

(2018) Donald Trump says US will no longer abide by Iran deal – as it happened. The Guardian. 08.05.2018. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2018/may/08/iran-nuclear-deal-donald-trump-latest-live-updates

31.

Jewkes

(2004) Media and Crime: Key Approaches to Criminology. Sage.

32.

Jewkes

Linnemann

(2018) Media and Crime in the U.S. Sage

33.

Krumbein

(2015) Media coverage of human rights in China. International Communication Gazette 77(2): 151–170.

34.

Machin

(2022) The Law and Critical Discourse Studies. Critical Discourse Studies 20(3).

35.

Lewis

(2021) Who is the Winner in the Deal between Meng Wanzhou and the DOJ? Under the Deferred Prosecution Agreement the DOJ Can Claim that Meng Admitted “Wrong-doing,” But All Charges Against Her Can Now Be Dismissed by December 2022. Available at: https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=df2a7f76-c7b7-41ba-a1d1-4e9f709443cf

36.

Liu

(2021) Analysis of Legal Issues Involved in the Meng Wanzhou Case Asia Law Portal August 18. Available at: https://asialawportal.com/2021/08/18/analysis-of-legal-issues-involved-in-the-meng-wanzhou-case/

37.

Lohmann

(2019) Extraterritorial U.S. sanctions: only domestic courts could effectively curb the enforcement of U.S. law abroad (SWP Comment 5/2019) Berlin: Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik -SWP- Deutsches Institut für Internationale Politik und Sicherheit. https://doi.org/10.18449/2019C05

38.

Machin

Mayr

(2023) How to Do Critical Discourse Analysis. Sage.

39.

Marsh

(2012) ‘Global Security: US–UK relations’: Lessons for the special relationship? Journal of Transatlantic Studies 10(2): 182–199.

40.

Meagher

(2020) Caught in the economic crosshairs: Secondary sanctions and the American sanctions regime. Fordham Law Review 89(3): 999–1030.

41.

Meyer

(2021) Promoted media coverage of court decisions: Media gatekeeping of court press releases and the role of news values. Journalism Studies 22(6): 723–740.

42.

Mills

(2016) The BBC: Myth of a Public Service. Verso.

43.

National Cyber Security Center (2021) Huawei advice: What you need to know. Available at: https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/information/huawei-advice-what-you-need-to-know

44.

Paletta

Davis

(2012) U.S. election: China a punching bag in debate. The Wall Street Journal. Available at: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10000872396390444734804578061771598287456

45.

Rabuy

Kopf

(2016) Detaining the Poor: How money bail perpetuates an endless cycle of poverty and jail time. Available at: https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/incomejails.html

46.

Roche

(2021a) Extraterritorial legal outreach: Why should the US call the shots? Available at: https://www.euractiv.com/section/global-europe/opinion/extraterritorial-legal-outreach-why-should-the-us-call-the-shots/

47.

Roche

(2021b) How U.S. extraterritorial legal action affects European companies. Available at: https://www.brusselsreport.eu/2021/12/16/how-u-s-extraterritorial-legal-action-affects-european-companies/

48.

Ruyt

(2019) American sanctions and European sovereignty. European Policy Brief 54: 1–4.

49.

Shi

(2015) China’s national defence in global security discourse: a cultural–rhetorical approach to military scholarship. Third World Quarterly 36(11): 2044–2058.

50.

Slaughter

(2000) A liberal theory of international law. Proceedings of the ASIL Annual Meeting 94: 240–249.

51.

Smith

(2019) “On China, Trump needs Europe”. The New York Times (International Edition), p.7, June 13th.

52.

Stavro

(2014) SARS and Alterity: the Toronto-China Binary. New Political Science 36(2): 172-192.

53.

Surette

(2011) Media Crime and Criminal Justice: Images Realities and Policies (4th Edition). Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

54.

Tabbert

(2015) Crime and Corpus: The Linguistic Representation of Crime in the Press. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

55.

The Economist (2019) How the American takeover of a French national champion became intertwined in a corruption investigation. Available at: https://www.economist.com/business/2019/01/17/how-the-american-takeover-of-a-french-national-champion-became-intertwined-in-a-corruption-investigation

56.

Van Eijk

(2017) Socioeconomic marginality in sentencing: The built-in bias in risk assessment tools and the reproduction of social inequality. Punishment & Society 19(4): 463–481.

57.

Van Leeuwen

(2008) Discourse and Practice: New Tools for Critical Discourse Analysis. Oxford University Press.

58.

Veneziano

(2019) Extraterritoriality and the regulatory power of the United States: Featured issues of sovereignty legitimacy accountability and democracy. University of Baltimore Journal of International Law 6(2): 189–214.

59.

Vinson

Ertter

(2002) Entertainment or education: How do media cover the courts? The International Journal of Press/Politics 7(4): 80–97.

60.

Wahl-Jorgensen

Berry

Garcia-Blanco

, et al (2017) Rethinking balance and impartiality in journalism? How the BBC attempted and failed to change the paradigm. Journalism 18(7): 781–800.

61.

Williams

(2011) International Journalism. Sage.

62.

Wintour

(2021) Canada China and US were all doomed to lose in Meng Wanzhou’s case. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/sep/24/meng-wanzhou-canada-china-us-settlement-analysis

63.

Yates

(2021) Will the Canadian courts make Meng Wanzhou’s case their own Lotus? Scholars International Journal of Law Crime and Justice 4(3): 136–143.