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?”

Recent Publications

ChinaFile: What Future for International NGOs in China? by USALI Executive Director Katherine Wilhelm

USALI Executive Director Katherine Wilhelm recently published a commentary as part of a ChinaFile Conversation titled “What Future for International NGOs in China?” Wilhelm wrote:

No organization should compromise its mission in order to keep a China program active. And virtually no one would consciously do that: It could alienate staff and key stakeholders and court public controversy. Staying in China is not an end in itself. At the same time, it is difficult for large organizations to completely ignore China given its impact on the planet. The real dilemma, therefore, is figuring out how to achieve the organizational mission as it applies to China.

Read “What Future for International NGOs in China?”

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"Beijing’s Crackdown on Human Rights and the Rule of Law in Hong Kong" by Michael C. Davis

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This essay examines how Beijing’s escalating crackdown on Hong Kong has systematically imposed authoritarian policies that undermine international human rights and the rule of law, abandoning China’s commitments both to the Hong Kong people and to the international community.

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JILP: Biden's International Law Restoration by USALI Faculty Director José Alvarez

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USALI Faculty Director and NYU Law Herbert and Rose Rubin Professor of International Law José Alvarez recently published an article in NYU Law’s Journal of International Law and Politics (JILP) entitled “Biden’s International Law Restoration,” in Volume 53, Number 2 – Winter 2021. JILP is a student-run publication devoted to commentary on contemporary issues in international and comparative law. JILP features articles on international legal topics by leading scholars and practitioners and notes, case comments, and book annotations written by journal members.

Read Biden’s International Law Restoration, 53 N.Y.U. J. Int’l L. & Pol. 523 (2021).

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Hong Kong: The End of Delusion

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As the Hong Kong and Beijing governments continue their assault on civil society in the territory — through tactics ranging from arbitrary arrests and attacks on the legal profession to the gutting of liberal studies and the inculcation of loyalty to the CCP in the guise of "patriotism," neither "China experts" at large, nor professedly left-leaning academics, have engaged in any critical self-reflection on their culpability in Hong Kong's demise, writes Alvin Y.H. Cheung.

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The Asia Pacific Journal: Comparative Reflections on the Carlos Ghosn Case and Japanese Criminal Justice

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The arrest and prosecution of Nissan executive Carlos Ghosn, together with his dramatic flight from Japan, have focused unprecedented attention on Japan’s criminal justice system. This article employs comparison with the United States to examine issues in Japanese criminal justice highlighted by the Ghosn case.

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Labour Protections for Overseas Chinese Workers: Legal Framework and Judicial Practice

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On October 16, 2020, USALI Affiliated Scholar Aaron Halegua and Assistant Professor Xiaohui Ban of Wuhan University School of Law recently published an article in The Chinese Journal of Comparative Law.

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SCMP: A decade after Chinese human rights lawyers Tang Jitian and Liu Wei were disbarred, much has changed – for the worse

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Despite the coronavirus pandemic, liberal democracies and lawyers around the world must advocate for persecuted human rights lawyers in China, who are subject to arrests, prison sentences, disbarments and enforced disappearances.

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Transitional Justice in Taiwan: Changes and Challenges

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Transitional Justice in Taiwan: Changes and Challenges

Taiwan’s experience with transitional justice over the past three decades suggests that dealing with historical injustice is a dynamic and fluid process that is fundamentally shaped and constrained by the balance of power and socio-political reality in a particular transitional society. This Article provides a contextualized legal-political analysis of the evolution of Taiwan’s transitional justice regime, with special attention to its limits and challenges.

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Osaka High Court clears grandmother in an SBS case

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USALI is pleased to report the recent developments from Innocence Project Japan and their work to overturn a shaken-baby-syndrome case. Below is an English summary taken from the Shaken Baby Review website, written by IPJ partner Kana Sasakura of Konan University.

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China's Challenge to the International Human Rights Regime

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China's Challenge to the International Human Rights Regime

Human rights in China is an important research field that the USALI is actively engaged in. Dr. Yu-Jie Chen, our affiliate scholar and a Global Academic Fellow at Hong Kong University Faculty of Law, has just published an article on “China’s Challenge to the International Human Rights Regime” (NYU Journal of International Law and Politics, vol. 51, no. 4, 2019).

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Human Rights in the Chinese Administration of Justice

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Human Rights in the Chinese Administration of Justice

This paper, published by USALI Affiliated Scholar Yu-Jie Chen, is part of the annual report published by Taiwan’s Foundation for Democracy on human rights in China. It gives an overview of the recent trends, particularly in 2018, regarding human rights issues in the contexts of the Chinese police law enforcement, the National Supervisory Commission, the court and lawyers.