Law Commons^™

Made In China: How Chinese Counterfeits Are Creating A National Security Nightmare For The United States, Laura C. Nastase

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Is Labor Really "Cheap" In China? Compliance With Labor And Employment Laws, Marisa Anne Pagnattaro

marisa pagnattaro

Abstract: This article details China’s the growing body of labor and employment laws. Specifically, this research analyzes major labor and employment law developments in China, including the newly adopted Labor Contract Law, employment discrimination sexual harassment, wages, workplace health and safety, worker privacy, and dispute resolution. The ramifications of this developing legal landscape on U.S. companies doing business in China are also discussed.

Public Awareness Of Human Rights: Distortions In The Mass Media, Eric Heinze, Rosa Freedman

Prof. Eric Heinze, Queen Mary University of London

This article examines distortions of human rights reporting in the mass media. We examine human rights coverage in four of the most influential newspapers, two from the US and two from the UK. The US papers are The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. The British papers are The Financial Times and The Guardian.

Most current scholarship on international human rights draws its information from specialized sources, such as the published reports of intergovernmental and non-governmental organisations. Wholly absent has been any systematic study of the mass media. To date, no one has examined the dominant media agencies, …

Gender And The Chinese Legal Profession In Historical Perspective: From Heaven And Earth To Rule Of Woman?, Mary Szto

Mary Szto

This article first discusses the current phenomenon of women judges and male lawyers in China. Many women have joined the ranks of the Chinese judiciary because this is considered a stable job conducive to caring for one’s family, as opposed to being a lawyer, which requires business travel and heavy client entertaining. I then trace this phenomenon to ancient views of Heaven, earth, gender and law in China. In this yin/yang framework, men had primary responsibility for providing sustenance for both this life and the life to come and women were relegated to the “inner chambers”. Also, law was secondary …

The Perils Of Foreign Contracating In China, Debra J. Reed

Debra J Reed

QUESTION PRESENTED

Whether a business contract executed between a foreign party and a Chinese party is enforceable in the courts of the People’s Republic of China?

BRIEF ANSWER

Probably not. Foreign party reliance on Chinese courts to enforce their contracts is premature because China is not yet a rule of law country. Chinese courts do not exercise judicial independence. Political domination by the Chinese Communist Party, CCP, over the courts, and Chinese local protectionism both influence the outcome of cases. Moreover, the Chinese legal system is wrought with corruption. Because inexperienced judges adopt new laws at varying speeds and apply …

Electronic Contracting In China, Debra J. Reed

Debra J Reed

QUESTION PRESENTED

Whether an electronically signed business contract between a Chinese and foreign party is legally valid under the 2005 Electronic Signature Law of the People’s Republic of China and is enforceable in China’s courts?

BRIEF ANSWER

An electronically signed business contract between a Chinese and foreign party is legally valid under the 2005 Electronic Signature Law of the People’s Republic of China, PRC. Statutorily, Chinese law enables electronic contracting by giving the same legal force to electronic signatures and data messages, as to traditional ink signatures and paper documents. Lack of payment systems, high costs to businesses of adopting …

Guiding The Censor’S Scissors: A Framework To Assess Internet Filtering, Derek E. Bambauer

Derek Bambauer

While China’s Internet censorship receives considerable attention, censorship in the United States and other democratic countries is largely ignored. The Internet is increasingly fragmented by states’ different value judgments about what content is unacceptable. States differ not in their intent to censor material – from political dissent in Iran to copyrighted songs in America – but in the content they target, how precisely they block it, and how involved their citizens are in these choices. Previous scholars have analyzed Internet censorship from various values-based perspectives, and have sporadically addressed key principles such as openness, transparency, narrowness, and accountability in evaluating …

Gendercide And The Cultural Context Of Sex Trafficking In China, Susan W. Tiefenbrun, Susan W. Tiefenbrun

Susan W Tiefenbrun

Abstract:Gendercide and the Cultural Context of Sex Trafficking in China

By Susan Tiefenbrun and Christie Edwards

Women in China are bought and sold, murdered and made to disappear in order to comply with a strict government One Child Policy that coincides with the cultural tradition of male-child preference and discrimination against women. Everyday “500 female suicides” occur in China because of “violence against women and girls, discrimination [against women] in education and employment, the traditional preference for male children, the country’s birth limitation policies, and other societal factors…” As a result of a widespread and arguably systematic disappearance and death …

Encroachment On Navigational Freedoms, Raul (Pete) Pedrozo

International Law Studies

No abstract provided.

China And The Law Of The Sea: An Update, Guifang Xue

International Law Studies

No abstract provided.

The Unvarnished Truth: The Debate On The Law Of The Sea Convention, William L. Schachte Jr.

International Law Studies

No abstract provided.

The Medium Of Exchange Paradigm: A Fresh Look At Compensated Live-Organ Donation, Dean Lhospital

Dean Lhospital

For over twenty years, human live-organ sales have been banned in the United States and most of the rest of the world. Observations and data arising from black market transactions and the few legal markets for organs suggest that permitting and regulating organ sales leads to more humane conditions than outlawing sales. Despite the data, opponents of organ sales still argue that selling human organs devalues human life. This article examines the panoply of organ markets – white, grey, and black – and identifies the source of this cognitive dissonance. Recognizing that there is a fundamental paradox in ethical objections, …

Slides: Threats To Biological Diversity: Global, Continental, Local, J. Michael Scott

Shifting Baselines and New Meridians: Water, Resources, Landscapes, and the Transformation of the American West (Summer Conference, June 4-6)

Presenter: J. Michael Scott, U.S. Geological Survey, Idaho Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, University of Idaho

38 slides

Slides: Protecting Biodiversity Through Ecosystem Services, Barton "Buzz" Thompson

Shifting Baselines and New Meridians: Water, Resources, Landscapes, and the Transformation of the American West (Summer Conference, June 4-6)

Presenter: Barton “Buzz” Thompson, Perry L. McCarty Director, Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University Law School

14 slides

May Roundtable: Introduction

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

"China's Olympic Delusion" by Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom. Nation. March 19, 2008.

Sport And Politics, Christine Bell

Human Rights & Human Welfare

I found the reflection interesting, but unsurprising. Protestors use the Olympic spotlight (or should we say torch?) to shine on China’s flaws, and China tries to re-direct or extinguish its beams.

"Instant Karma": How Globalization Contests China's Abuses, Alison Brysk

Human Rights & Human Welfare

China’s rise from impoverished backwater to prospective superpower has been accompanied by the repression of tens of millions of its own people, at the hands of a nationalist, developmentalist government. Under contemporary conditions of globalization, suppression of civil liberties, domination of ethnic minorities, and unholy alliances with resource-rich dictatorships are no longer plausible requisites of this model—if they ever were. The broadening and deepening of economic globalization towards a more sustainable complex of political influence involves “soft power,” including international reputation and norms. Thus, China’s Olympian reach for true hegemony provides the best chance for human rights advocates to weave …

Seductions Of Imperialism: Incapacitating Life, Fetishizing Death And Catastrophizing Ecologies, Anna M. Agathangelou

Human Rights & Human Welfare

“China’s Olympic Delusion” is a great piece which gestures to the ironies and/or contradictions of political systems in bed with imperialist-capitalism as we know it at this time: the tensions between a dominant idea that liberal democracy is the best political system to pay attention to and address human rights, and capitalism with no limits, can go hand-in-hand. This is merely the delusion, and also the fantasy, that keeps “us” (i.e., citizens, intellectuals etc) put, and from thinking critically.

Beijing's Olympics: Pride, Appearance And Human Rights, Thomas Beal

Human Rights & Human Welfare

One lazy summer evening in Beijing, about fifteen years ago, my wife and I were strolling down Jianguomenwai, the bustling street adjacent to our flat in the Qijiayuan Diplomatic Compound. The day had been sweltering, and as the sun began to set the sidewalks filled with pedestrians who, like us, had escaped their stuffy apartments to take in a cool, soothing breeze.

The Olympic Spotlight: The Beijing Games And China As A Future World Leader, Eric A. Heinze

Human Rights & Human Welfare

According to Jeffrey Wasserstrom’s article, if the Chinese think they can censor the Olympics, and the political showcasing that will almost certainly accompany them, they are sorely mistaken. I am persuaded by the thrust of this argument. I just hope that as China vies for global leadership and influence, whatever truths the Olympic spotlight reveals about its potential in this regard are more farcical than tragic.

Scandal, Sukyandaru, And Chouwen, Benjamin L. Liebman

Michigan Law Review

This Review proceeds in four parts. Part I describes West's account of scandal in Japan and the United States and explores some of the ramifications of his account. Part II examines the formation of scandal in contemporary China. Part III compares scandal in China with West's conclusions about scandal in Japan and the United States. Part IV discusses defamation litigation in China, with a view to adding further comparative insight to West's discussion of Japanese libel suits.

China’S New Anti-Monopoly Law: Big Trouble In Little China?, Henry C. Cheng

Henry C Cheng

China’s New Anti-monopoly Law: Big Trouble in Little China? addresses China’s new Anti-Monopoly Law (“AML”) that became effective in August 2008, specifically the implications of provisions related to China’s state-owned enterprises ("SOEs"). It explores the legislative history of the AML and provides interpretations of the pertinent provisions.

In addition, the article is the first to synthesize competition laws from the U.S. and the European Community in order to apply them in another country. To achieve that, the author embarked on a comprehensive research on the development of competition laws in the US and the EC. There has been no work …

Why Brazil Has Not Grown: A Comparative Analysis Of Brazilian, Indian, And Chinese Economic Management, Fernando Ferrari, Anthony Petros Spanakos

Department of Political Science and Law Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

This paper does not aim to dispute that Brazil would benefit from reforms in any or all of these areas. Rather, the paper offers a skeptical perspective on reform menus and proposes an alternative explanation for the faster growth of Brazil’s peers India and China2. The paper begins by introducing (section 1) the idea of the BRICs countries, to establish the basis for comparisons of most similar cases. It then surveys the results of a generation of Washington Consensus era growth (section 2). Although there is a considerable amount of divergence over what causes growth, it seems that something approaching …

The Dark Side Of Labor In China, Karine Lepillez

Human Rights & Human Welfare

With a population of 1.3 billion and a gross domestic product growing at an impressive rate of 10 percent per year, China has quickly become one of the largest contributors to the global market. Deng Xiaoping’s reforms of the late 1970s and early 1980s vastly improved the country’s standard of living and made economic development possible; unfortunately, China’s remarkable growth has a dark side: the forced labor of men, women and children. The country’s unique combination of Communist ideology and decentralized economic power has contributed to the use of both state-sanctioned and unsanctioned forced labor, the latter of which is …

A U.S.-China Partnership To Protect Our Climate, Thomas P. Lyon

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

Climate change is an environmental problem of global dimensions, but we lack a system of international law that can impose a coordinated response. Bilateral agreements between key nations may present a solution. A partnership between the United States and China to develop technology for carbon capture and sequestration offers hope for mitigating the climate impacts of China’s rapidly growing number of coal-burning electric power plants.

Making Much Ado About Theory: The Chinese Trademark Law, Leah Chan Grinvald

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

Although the United States has had an active hand in the implementation of trademark law in China over the past century, the same frustrations that marked the turn of the twentieth century are reflected in the twenty-first century. This Article posits that one of the reasons that the United States has not seen the desired level of progress in China's protection of trademarks lies in the imposition of an American theory of trademarks, which has inhibited U.S. reform efforts in China to date. This imposition is understandable, as little thought has been given to the Chinese theoretical justification for their …

"Think Glocal, Act Glocal": The Praxis Of Social Justice Lawyering In The Global Era, Lauren Carasik

Faculty Scholarship

Millions of people in the world struggle to survive in extreme economic deprivation, and deteriorating conditions have highlighted the failure of international development policies to "lift all boats." The complex and globalized context of poverty compels social justice lawyers to innovate transnational advocacy strategies, expanding human rights norms as part of those efforts. This Article suggests a cross-border, collaborative advocacy model for clinical education. The model is premised on theories of global interconnectedness that integrate progressive lawyering, social change theory and anti-poverty work in the global era, thereby contributing to the discourse about and praxis of combating international economic injustice. …

The Challenge Of Chinese Environmental Law, Robert V. Percival

Faculty Scholarship

China faces some of the most difficult environmental problems in the world as rapid industrial growth has produced horrendous air and water pollution. How China’s government responds to these challenges will have profound effects on the global environment. This essay discusses how Chinese environmental laws are evolving to cope with these problems and the severe obstacles that Chinese authorities face. It notes that the highly decentralized nature of China’s system of environmental laws makes it difficult for the central government to implement and enforce the laws. The essay concludes that, despite some progress, the lack of an independent judiciary and …

The Medium Of Exchange Paradigm: A Fresh Look At Compensated Live-Organ Donation, Dean Lhospital

Dean Lhospital

For over twenty years, human live-organ sales have been banned in the United States and most of the rest of the world. Observations and data arising from black market transactions and the few legal markets for organs suggest that permitting and regulating organ sales leads to more humane conditions than outlawing sales. Despite the data, opponents of organ sales still argue that selling human organs devalues human life. This article examines the panoply of organ markets – white, grey, and black – and identifies the source of this cognitive dissonance. Recognizing that there is a fundamental paradox in ethical objections, …

From Star Wars To Space Wars—The Next Strategic Frontier: Paradigms To Anchor Space Security, Jackson N. Maogoto, Steven Freeland

Jackson Nyamuya Maogoto

Military blueprints by major space-faring powers now encapsulate concepts of ‘space support’ and ‘force enhancement’ which point to a central role of space assets in facilitating military operations while notions of ‘space control’ and ‘force application’ suggest the weaponization of space, and the putative view that space may in the near future be a theatre of military operations. As defence goals increasingly focus on space as the final frontier evident in development of national missile defence systems, anti-satellite weapons and other space-based systems, international peace and security faces a new challenge. Creators of the current legal regime for space failed …