Law Commons^™

Authoritarian Privacy, Mark Jia

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Privacy laws are traditionally associated with democracy. Yet autocracies increasingly have them. Why do governments that repress their citizens also protect their privacy? This Article answers this question through a study of China. China is a leading autocracy and the architect of a massive surveillance state. But China is also a major player in data protection, having enacted and enforced a number of laws on information privacy. To explain how this came to be, the Article first turns to several top-down objectives often said to motivate China’s privacy laws: advancing its digital economy, expanding its global influence, and protecting its …

A Reader’S Guide To Legal Orientalism, Teemu Ruskola

All Faculty Scholarship

My book Legal Orientalism: China, the United States, and Modern Law (Harvard University Press 2013) was published in translation in China in 2016. This essay analyzes the Chinese reception of this book. Originally addressed to a North American readership, Legal Orientalism examines critically the asymmetric relationship in which Euro-American law and Chinese law stand to one another, the former regarding itself as an embodiment of universal values while viewing the latter’s as culturally particular ones. The essay explores what happens when a “Western” work of self-criticism is transmitted to an “Eastern” audience. In this context, it analyzes the politics of …

Inefficiency Of Specific Performance As A Contractual Remedy In Chinese Courts: An Empirical And Normative Analysis, Lei Chen, Larry A. Dimatteo

UF Law Faculty Publications

This article investigates the values and latent policies, which have shaped the development of Chinese law in the area of the availability of specific performance (SP) as a contractual remedy. The National People’s Congress (Legislature) and Supreme People’s Court in China have addressed the remedial structure of Chinese contract law, namely, the availability of the remedy of SP as opposed to the awarding of damages-only. The law is clear that the remedies of SP and damages are ordinary remedies that a claimant is free to choose between. The question that is confronted in this article is whether in practice the …

Law In The Shadow Of Violence: Can Law Help To Improve Doctor-Patient Trust In China?, Benjamin L. Liebman

Faculty Scholarship

Can law help to address the lack of trust in doctor-patient relationships in China? This essay examines the role that law, on the books and in practice, has played in the rise and resolution of patient-doctor disputes and conflict in China. Law has generally played a secondary role in medical disputes: most patient claims never make it to court, and there is little evidence that negotiated outcomes are influenced by legal standards. Yet a legal framework weighted in favor of hospitals and doctors almost certainly exacerbated doctor-patient conflict in the 2000s. Patients facing legal procedures and rules that appeared to …

External Forces, Internal Dynamics: Foreign Legal Actors And Their Impact On Domestic Affairs (Book Review), Jayanth K. Krishnan, Vitor M. Dias, Martin Hevia

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This Review examines the influence of foreign legal actors on jurisdictions that are not their own. Rachel Stern, a scholar of China, reflects on this point in her groundbreaking book published in 2013. In her penultimate chapter, Stern discusses how such foreign legal actors wield influence in China because of their presence on the ground. Building off of Stern's research, this Review proceeds to ask whether foreign legal actors can influence a domestic environment when that environment prohibits them from permanently working there. The analysis below will suggest so, arguing that the forces of globalization can enable foreign legal …

A Review Of Great Legal Traditions: Civil Law, Common Law, And Chinese Law In Historical And Operational Perspective, Leslie A. Burton

Publications

Three justices of the German Federal Constitutional Court, resplendent in red regalia, stand tall behind a high wooden bench and under an enormous carved eagle. A high ceiling emphasizes the splendor of the high court. The faces of Confucius, Constantine, and Blackstone, regal in their formal vestments, appear on the left. Superimposed text reads "Great Legal Traditions: Civil Law, Common Law, and Chinese Law in Historical and Operational Perspective." The startlingly vivid book cover commands visual attention, while its title promises an overview of the history of three legal systems along with their presentday procedures. But an impressive cover can …

Ambivalence & Activism: Employment Discrimination In China, Timothy Webster

Faculty Publications

Chinese courts do not vigorously enforce many human rights, but a recent string of employment discrimination lawsuits suggests that, given the appropriate conditions, advocacy strategies, signals from above, and rights at issue, courts can help victims vindicate their constitutional and statutory rights to equality. Since 28, carriers of the hepatitis B virus (HBV) have used the Employment Promotion Law to challenge hiring discrimination. Their high success rate suggests official support for making one potent form of discrimination illegal. Central to these lawsuits is a broad network of lawyers, activists and scholars who have advocated for protecting the rights of HBV …

Legal Uncertainty In Foreign Investment In China: Causes And Management, Stanley B. Lubman

Hong Yen Chang Center for Chinese Legal Studies

My talk today will be based on an article – “Looking for Law in China” – that was published last year. In it, looked at Chinese law from the perspective of foreign investors that have had to cope with the uncertainty of a business environment in which legal institutions have been vague, incomplete and weak. I wrote, and today speak to you, from under two hats, that of a scholar and that of practicing lawyer, since for over thirty years I have combined those two careers. My observations here, then, are not just those from the academic ivory tower but …

Book Review: Comparative Law In A Global Context: The Legal Systems Of Asia And Africa, Maxwell O. Chibundu

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Study Of Chinese Law In The United States: Reflections On The Past And Concerns About The Future, Stanley B. Lubman

Hong Yen Chang Center for Chinese Legal Studies

I am pleased to write in honor of Bill Jones by reflecting here on the study of Chinese law, which has occupied us both since the early 1960s and has since grown far beyond its narrow scope at that time. In the pages that follow, I first survey the development and current state of the field by reviewing American scholarship on some major areas of Chinese law from those early days up to the present. I am also pleased to use this review as a vehicle for noting, in particular, some of Bill's contributions to our inquiries. Some related activities …

Dispute Resolution In China After Deng Xiaoping: "Mao And Mediation" Revisited, Stanley B. Lubman

Hong Yen Chang Center for Chinese Legal Studies

This Article presents portions of a book tentatively entitled "Bird in a Cage: Legal Reform in China After Mao." The book explores the Western vantage point from which I have viewed institutions for dispute resolution, the imprint on them of the traditional and more recent Maoist past, the disorderly context of rapid economic and social change in which they must operate today, and the larger law reforms of which they are part. Against that background it examines the operation of extrajudicial mediation and the courts. The scope of this Article is more limited.

I have not speculated here about appropriate …

Class Action Litigation In China, Benjamin L. Liebman

Faculty Scholarship

Class struggle has moved to China's courtrooms. Since the passage of China's 1991 Civil Procedure Law (CPL), which explicitly permits class action litigation, multiplaintiff groups have brought suits seeking compensation for harm caused by pollution, false advertising, contract violations, and securities law violations. Although administrative bodies continue to resolve most disputes in China, the increasing prevalence of class actions is one aspect of an explosion in civil litigation over the past decade. Class action litigation has the potential to alter the role courts play in adjudicating disputes, increase access to the courts, and facilitate the independence of the legal profession. …

Autonomy Through Separation?: Environmental Law And The Basic Law Of Hong Kong, Benjamin L. Liebman

Faculty Scholarship

One hundred days after taking office as Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (Hong Kong SAR) of the People's Republic of China, Tung Chee-hwa pledged both to take steps to improve Hong Kong's environment, and to increase coordination of environmental policy with officials in neighboring Guangdong Province. Tung's comments marked a rhetorical shift from environmental policy in British Hong Kong: eight years earlier, the Hong Kong government's first White Paper on environmental policy, Pollution in Hong Kong – A Time to Act, made only passing mention of China. Yet the White Paper was not alone in …

China's New Bankruptcy Law: A Translation And Brief Introduction, Douglass G. Boshkoff, Yongxin Song

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Western Scholarship On Chinese Law: Past Accomplishments And Present Challenges, Stanley B. Lubman

Hong Yen Chang Center for Chinese Legal Studies

Chinese law-making in recent years has been nothing less than remarkable and presents a new challenge for research today. The recent adoption of new codes, the revival of formal legal institutions, including courts and the bar, and the reinvigoration of legal education and research all signal the reappearance of an entire field of study.

Although a foundation for study was laid by some scholars in the 1960's, the field later declined, reflecting the low condition to which the Chinese legal system fell, both before and during the disastrous Cultural Revolution. Once again, however, study of the operation of the Chinese …

Book Review. The People's Republic Of China And The Law Of Treaties By Hung-Dah Chiu, Bryant G. Garth

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Book Review. Law In Imperial China: Exemplified By 190 Ch'ing Dynasty Cases By Derk Bodde And Clarence Morris, Robert L. Birmingham

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.