This Week in Asian Law
Yuan Gao
This Week in Asian Law

Chinese universities conduct a nationwide audit of retracted academic papers; Hong Kong courts sentence more defendants in cases stemming from the 2019 protests; LGBTQ activists in Japan advocate for equal marriage rights on Valentine’s Day; South Korea convicts three former police officers for destroying evidence linked to a fatal crowd crush in Seoul on Halloween 2022; Taiwan solicits public input for the next phase of its Open Government National Action Plan.

NYU, NYU Law, Awards
Alexis Sanborn
Faculty Director José E. Alvarez elected to the ...

USALI Faculty Director José E. Alvarez has been elected a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, one of the oldest and most prestigious learned societies in the United States. He is among 252 new members announced on April 22, and one of only five law professors who were chosen.

Alexis Sanborn
ONLINE | Law, Justice and Human Rights in China ...

This 10-session seminar will introduce the legal system of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) – in practice as well as theory – with an emphasis on institutions, norms, procedures, personnel and ideology relating to constitutional law, criminal justice and human rights. We will view the contemporary legal process against the background of China’s legal traditions and pre-Communist efforts to develop a modern legal system. We will also consider the relevant experiences of Chinese societies in Taiwan and Hong Kong.

USALI News, US-China Relations, Recent Events, NYU Law
Alexis Sanborn
Jerome A. Cohen receives an honorary degree ...

Pioneering scholar of Chinese law, Professor Jerome Alan Cohen has taught and mentored countless others in a field he helped establish in this country. A courageous voice for those whose voices have been silenced, Professor Cohen defends human rights around the globe. Bold trailblazer and advocate, for using his many talents to create a more just world, Yale is proud to present Professor Jerome Alan Cohen with his third Yale degree, Doctor of Laws.

China, US-China Relations
Guest User
“Was Helping China Build Its Post-1978 Legal ...

From USALI Faculty Director Emeritus  Jerome A. Cohen: “Here’s a draft of a new article that in a way is my Apologia Pro Vita Sua. There have been some debates about whether those of us who tried to help China build its legal system in the decade beginning in 1979 committed a mistake. I offer my thoughts in the article from a frank, close-up, first-hand perspective. I hope they will be useful for people thinking about our China policy and for anyone interested in recent Chinese history.”

“Was Helping China Build Its Post-1978 Legal System a Mistake?”

Year End Letter

U.S.-Asia Law Institute 2015 Selected Publications

The following is a selected sampling of the U.S.-Asia Law Institute’s publication for the year of 2015. 

Professor Jerome A. Cohen

Professor Ira Belkin & Jerome A. Cohen

Professor Frank Upham:

  • “China’s Changing Property Law Landscape,” Research Handbook on Comparative Property Law, Edward Elgar Publishing, Winter 2015.

  • “The Evolution of Relational Property Rights: A Case of Chinese Rural Land Reform,” Iowa Law Review, May 2015.

  • “The Paradoxical Roles of Property Rights in Growth and Development,” Law and Development Review, Winter 2015.

  • “Lessons from Chinese Growth: Re-Thinking the Role of Property Rights in Development,” The Beijing Consensus? How China has Changed Western Ideas of Law and Economic Development, Cambridge University Press.

For a complete listing of Professor Upham’s publications, please visit here.

Yu-Jie Chen:

Sida Liu:

  • “The Fall and Rise of Law and Social Science in China,” Annual Review of Law and Social Science 11: 373-394, 2015. (Sida Liu and Zhizhou Wang)

  • “Advocates, Experts, and Suspects: Three Images of Lawyers in Chinese Media Reports,” International Journal of the Legal Profession 21(2): 195-212, 2015. (Cheng-Tong Lir Wang, Sida Liu, and Terence C. Halliday)

  • “Law’s Social Forms: A Powerless Approach to the Sociology of Law,” Law & Social Inquiry 40(1): 1-28, 2015.

  • “Boundary Work and Exchange: The Formation of a Professional Service Market,” Symbolic Interaction 38(1): 1-21, 2015.

Chi Yin:

Alvin Y. H. Cheung

  • “Intra-Executive Policy Laundering: A New Look at an Old Problem,” 41 N.C. J. INT'L L. (forthcoming).

  • “Road to Nowhere: Hong Kong's Democratization and China's Obligations Under Public International Law,” 40 BROOK. J. INT’L L. 465, 2015.

For a complete listing of Alvin’s articles and publications, please visit here.

Elias Blood-Patterson

2013 Year End Letter

Dear Friend of USALI,

Thank you for your support of NYU’s U.S.-Asia Law Institute (USALI) this past year. 2013 was a great year and we expect the coming year will be even better. 明年会更好！ Here is a quick summary of our accomplishments for the year.

Public Events

This year, USALI organized nearly sixty events at the law school, including:

  • The Nineteenth Annual Timothy A. Gelatt Dialogue on the Rule of Law in Asia, featuring seven members of NYU’s law faculty in an informal discussion of academic engagement with China

  • Expert speaker events with Evan Osnos, former China correspondent for The New Yorker; He Weifang, one of China’s leading public intellectuals and legal scholars; Zhou Dan, Chinese lawyer and LGBT rights advocate; and Guo Jianmei, China’s leading women’s rights lawyer

  • Roundtables with key participants in the East and South China Sea disputes, including Annette Lu, former Vice President of Taiwan; Francis Jardeleza, the Solicitor General of the Philippines; and representatives from Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Viet Nam and the People’s Republic of China

Expert Support of Legal Reform in China 

We also directly participated in legal reform workshops in Beijing, Chengdu, Fuzhou, Wuhan, and Xi’an through our three-year project on Criminal Procedure Reform.  This year we focused on implementation of the new provisions in Chinese law designed to prevent torture and coercion during police interrogations.  To that end, we shared with our Chinese colleagues world-renowned expertise and best practices in interrogation as well as the award-winning documentary, Central Park Five, which showed the grave injustice that false confessions may lead to.

Publications

This past year, USALI staff published fourteen academic articles and op-eds on legal reform in China, as well as Challenge to China: How Taiwan Abolished Its Version of Re-Education Through Labor (Berkshire), a book co-authored by USALI Co-Director Professor Jerome Cohen and USALI Affiliated Scholar Professor Margaret K. Lewis on Taiwan’s abolition of police-imposed punishment.

Awards

Professor Cohen’s work as a pioneer in the field of East Asian Legal Studies was acknowledged this year though a Lifetime Achievement Award granted by the American Association of Comparative Law, the Pacific Century Institute’s Building Bridges Award, established to honor people who have enhanced relations between Americans and Asians, and The American Lawyer magazine’s “Top 50 Innovators” award, given in recognition of Professor Cohen’s innovative work in the field of international law over the last five decades.

Expert Advice

Throughout the year, our staff was frequently called on as experts in various human rights and legal expert dialogues and as witnesses in Congressional hearings:

  • USALI Co-Director and Professor Frank Upham and Research Scholar Qiao Shitong organized a training on property rights for a delegation from China’s Ministry of Land and Resources

  • USALI organized a training for a delegation of judges from Taiwan studying the American jury system

  • Professor Cohen and I participated in the National Committee on U.S. China Relations Human Rights Dialogue

  • Maggie Lewis and I were asked to give testimony to Congress on the prospects for reforming Re-Education Through Labor

  • I was invited by the U.S. State Department to participate in the 6th annual U.S.-China Legal Experts Dialogue

We expect that next year will be another banner year for us.  Here are a few things we are looking forward to:

  • Shanghai Semester Abroad Program – USALI Co-Director Frank Upham has organized the first semester abroad program in Shanghai, and he and I will teach a winter session course at NYU Shanghai entitled, “An Introduction to Chinese Law”

  • Criminal Justice Reform – We will continue to focus on the new provisions of China’s amended Criminal Procedure Law regarding investigative techniques, detention and charging decisions

  • Public Interest Law Projects – We will continue work on the development of public interest law in China, especially in the areas of labor law, land rights and anti-discrimination law

  • Taiwan Rule of Law Initiative – We will continue to learn and share information about Taiwan’s transformation from martial law to democracy and the rule of law

USALI would not have been able to accomplish all that it has this year without the financial support of our friends.  We are grateful for your support. Please consider making a donation that will go toward next year’s activities. Click this link to donate to USALI's webpage.

We wish you happy holidays and a happy New Year and hope to see you at as many USALI events as you can attend in the coming year.

Warmest wishes,


Ira Belkin
Executive Director