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Judging China: The Chinese Legal System In U.S. Courts, Donald C. Clarke

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

How should American courts understand China’s legal system? How do they understand it, and are they doing a good job? These questions have become important as economic and social ties between China and the United States have mushroomed since China’s days of Maoist isolation. The answers have implications not just for China-related cases, but for the way U.S. courts treat authoritarian and illiberal legal systems more generally.

This Article presents the first attempt to answer these questions empirically through an intensive study of all cases in which parties either sought dismissal to China on forum non conveniens grounds or sought …