Law Commons^™

Horizontal Rights And Chinese Constitutionalism: Judicialization Through Labor Disputes, Ernest Caldwell

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Western academics who criticize Chinese constitutionalism often focus on the inability of the Supreme People's Court to effectively enforce the rights of Chinese citizens enshrined within the Constitution of the People's Republic of China. Such criticism, I argue, is the result of analytical methods too invested in Anglo-American constitutional discourse. These approaches tend to focus only on those Chinese political issues that impede the institution of western-style judicial review mechanisms, and often construe a 'right' as merely having vertical effect (i.e., as individual rights held against the State). Drawing on recent scholarship that studies Chinese constitutionalism using its own categories …

The Unity Of Constitutional Values: A Comment On Ernest Caldwell's "Horizontal Rights And Chinese Constitutionalism: Judicialization Through Labor Disputes", Arif A. Jamal

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Ernest Caldwell wants to defend Chinese constitutionalism from criticism, mainly from Western constitutional scholars or scholars who hold up Western constitutional patterns as an ideal. Caldwell makes both a 'comparative' claim and a 'value' claim. The comparative claim is that Chinese constitutional law must be understood on its own terms and that on these terms it does protect rights, even if it does not do so in the same way as Western constitutional law. The value claim is that the procedures in China's legal system satisfy value concerns captured in the term 'constitutionalism' because they show how that system respects …

Beyond The Courts, Beyond The State: Reflections On Caldwell's "Horizontal Rights And Chinese Constitutionalism", Victor V. Ramraj

Chicago-Kent Law Review

This article provides a critical response to Ernest Caldwell's article, Horizontal Rights and Chinese Constitutionalism: Judicialization through Labor Disputes. According to Caldwell, those looking for an emerging constitutional culture in China should be looking not in the higher courts (as the American paradigm of constitutional law suggests), but in the lower courts that settle day-to-day disputes. Moreover, the constitutional discourse in those lower courts is not about limiting state power, but about the need for "horizontal" protections of citizens—specifically laborers—from their powerful employers in furtherance of constitutional values. This article offers three responses to Caldwell's thesis. First, while acknowledging and …

The Moral Dimension Of Employment Dispute Resolution, Theodore J. St. Antoine

Articles

Dispute resolution may be viewed from the perspective of economics or negotiation or contract law or game theory or even military strategy. In this Article, I should like to consider employment dispute resolution in particular from the perspective of morality. I do not necessarily mean "morality" in any religious sense. By "morality" here I mean a concern about the inherent dignity and worth of every human being and the way each one should be treated by society. Some persons who best exemplify that attitude would style themselves secular humanists. Nonetheless, over the centuries religions across the globe have played a …

Teaching Adr In The Labor Field In China, Theodore J. St. Antoine

Articles

My first visit to China, in 1994, was purely as a tourist, and came about almost by accident. In late September of that year I attended the XIV World Congress of the International Society for Labor Law and Social Security in Seoul, South Korea. In the second week of October I was scheduled to begin teaching a one-term course in American law as a visiting professor at Cambridge University in England. Despite my hazy notions of geography, I realized it made no sense to return to the United States for the intervening week. The obvious solution was to continue flying …

Teaching Adr In The Labor Field In China, Theodore J. St. Antoine

Articles

The editors have asked us to be quite personal in our ruminations on the future of comparative labor law and policy. For me, over the past several years, the focus has been on China. My first visit to China in 1994, purely as a tourist, was almost by accident. In late September of that year I attended the XIV World Congress of the International Society for Labor Law and Social Security in Seoul, South Korea. In the second week of October, I was scheduled to begin teaching a oneterm course in American law as a visiting professor at Cambridge University …

Adr Without Borders, Theodore J. St. Antoine

Articles

My task is to assess the ways in which alternative dispute resolution procedures may be adapted to deal with international labor disputes. ADR refers to various methods by which neutral third parties assist persons engaged in a conflict to settle their differences without involving the decision-making power of the state or other sanction-imposing body. Both mediation and arbitration are included. In mediation the neutral seeks to get the parties to agree on a mutually acceptable solution. In arbitration the neutral imposes a solution after presentations by the contending parties. A third term, conciliation, is sometimes used and generally connotes a …

Lectures On The Law And Labor-Management Relations, University Of Michigan Law School

Summer Institute on International and Comparative Law

The 1950 Summer Institute on International and Comparative Law recognized the great importance, all over the world, of the problems of labor-management relations and the accelerating pace of development of labor law. The Institute sought, through the techniques of lecture, comment, and panel discussion, to provide a basis for an informed appraisal of some of the most challenging questions in this area.

For the most part the program dealt with the problems arising in the attempt in the United States and in other countries to develop and apply legal standards to labor-management relations. Underlying the legal framework, however, are major …