Law Commons^™

Prevention Of Vessel-Source Marine Pollution: A Note On The Challenges And Prospects For Chinese Practice Under International Law, Nengye Liu, Frank Maes

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This article examines China’s domestic legal regime for the prevention of vessel sourcepollution. It pays special attention to the recently adopted Regulation on Preventionand Control of Marine Pollution from Vessels. Potential challenges and emerging issuesthat China has to confront are addressed, including: application of the legislation todisputed sea areas between China and its neighbors, freedom of navigation in theexclusive economic zone, reduction of emission from ships, and prevention of invasivespecies from ballast water.

China And The New Asia: Policy Recommendations, Tasha N. Haug

Senior Honors Theses

The People’s Republic of China is an indispensable political and economic force in Asia. With the majority of the United States’ foreign economic interests invested in the Asia-Pacific region, the leading role that China is taking is a major concern. The Asia-Pacific region is strategically important to the US. How US policy makers craft foreign policy toward Asia has a direct impact on US involvement in the region. Unless the US becomes more invested in Asia, develops a comprehensive understanding of China’s role in the region, and proactively pursue strategic relationships, US influence in Asian affairs will become a thing …

The China Currency Issue: Why The World Trade Organization Would Fail To Provide The United States With An Effective Remedy, Marcus Sohlberg

Cornell Law School Inter-University Graduate Student Conference Papers

A critical issue in the global trading system that came to the forefront in 2010 concerns exchange rates. Having suffered to various degrees through the worst economic and financial downturn since the Great Depression, many large trading nations have sought to achieve economic recovery through export-led growth. In order to boost international competitiveness, many have engaged in competitive devaluations, i.e. interventions in currency markets to devalue domestic currency. According to Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega this situation has escalated into a “global currency war”.

This paper focuses on China’s practice of maintaining an artificially undervalued currency, and addresses the question …

Elephants In The Room: Challenges Of Integrating China Into The Wto System, Henry S. Gao

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Since China’s accession to the WTO in late 2001, one of the most intriguing questions for trade analysts has been whether the “new kid on the block” would seek to disrupt the status quo in the WTO upon its entry. This paper answers the question by reviewing China’s participation in two key activities of the WTO, i.e., trade negotiations and dispute settlement, as well as another important component of global trade governance: regional trade agreements (RTAs). Drawing from an in-depth study of China’s record in these activities, the author argues that, overall, China has transformed from a passive “taker” of …

Liberalization Of Taiwan’S Securities Markets: The Case Of Cross-Taiwan-Strait Listings, Wen-Yeu Wang, Christopher Chao-Hung Chen

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The purpose of this paper is to examine the liberalization of Taiwan’s capital market regarding cross-Taiwan-Strait listing of securities. Taiwan is in an advantageous position to compete with other Asian rivals to attract issuers and capital from China. However, the long political hostility ensures that there is little regulatory cooperation on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. Assuming that the creation of a cross-strait capital market is an unstoppable trend, this paper examines from the perspective of regulatory competition several regimes that may facilitate Taiwan to overcome regulatory obstacles arising from the special Sino-Taiwan relationship. This paper argues that regulatory …

B.Y.O.B. (Bring Your Own Bag): A Comprehensive Assessment Of China's Plastic Bag Policy, Mary O'Loughlin

Student Articles and Papers

On June 1, 2008, the Chinese government enacted a nationwide policy prohibiting all stores from freely distributing plastic bags to customers. This new policy requires that, henceforth, all retailers must charge a nominal fee for plastic bags and that those purchasable bags must meet certain quality requirements to improve their potential reusability. These retailers, which include everything from grocery and clothing stores to farmer’s markets and food stalls, individually determine how much to charge for their bags and get to keep all related proceeds. The policy is an effort to mitigate the “white pollution” that is choking China’s landscape, as …

A Fine Line, Redefined: Moving Toward More Equitable Asylum Policies, Heather M. Kolinsky

Scholarly Articles

This article is an exploration of the inequities that still remain in asylum claims, with particular reference to the experience of Chinese citizens seeking asylum and Cuban refugees.

Property Rights In Land, Agricultural Capitalism, And The Relative Decline Of Pre-Industrial China, Taisu Zhang

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Irony Of International Business Law: U.S. Progressivism And China's New Laissez Faire, Andrew B. Spalding

Law Faculty Publications

As the financial crisis draws U.S. business overseas and developing countries rise in influence, the regulation of international business has never figured so prominendy in federal law. But the dominant paradigm through which academics and policymakers continue to view that law-the so-called Washington Consensus-proves deeply misleading. A more accurate account of the components, origins, and aims of U.S. international business law reveals two striking ironies.

First, in discrete but critical ways, the United States no longer represents the comparatively laissez-faire approach to federal business regulation. Rather, owing to its origins in the Progressive Era, U.S. federal law directs corporations toward …

Taking Stock: China's First Decade Of Free Trade, Jun Zhao, Timothy Webster

Faculty Publications

China has established itself as a global economic presence in the past ten years. This article explains one important but overlooked aspect of this rise, China’s newfound interest in free trade agreements (FTAs). This paper situates the FTA boom within a framework of international political economy and China’s recent regional rise. This paper probes the question of how China selects its FTA partners, referencing US trade practice and policy as a framework by which to analyze China’s own preferences. This paper then explores the main features of China’s FTAs, finding that it has adopted a flexible FTA strategy that attends …

Pornography As Pollution, John C. Nagle

Journal Articles

Pornography is often compared to pollution. But little effort has been made to consider what it means to describe pornography as a pollution problem, even as many legal scholars have concluded that the law has failed to control internet pornography. Opponents of pornography maintain passionate convictions about how sexually-explicit materials harm both those who are exposed to them and the broader cultural environment. Viewers of pornography may generally hold less fervent beliefs, but champions of free speech and of a free internet object to anti-pornography regulations with strong convictions of their own. The challenge is how to address the widespread …

Pathway To Minority Shareholder Protection: Derivative Actions In The People's Republic Of China, Donald C. Clarke

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Using a dataset of Chinese judicial opinions arising in over fifty cases, this paper analyses the development and current implementation of shareholder derivative actions in the courts of the People’s Republic of China (“PRC”), both before and after the derivative lawsuit was explicitly authorized in the PRC’s 2006 Company Law effective January 1, 2006. In addition, we describe the very unique ecology of enterprise organization and corporate governance in modern China, and critique the formal design of the derivative action and offer reform suggestions.

We find the design of the Chinese derivative lawsuit to be, in some respects, innovative and …

An Analysis Of China’S Human Rights Policies In Tibet: China’S Compliance With The Mandates Of International Law Regarding Civil And Political Rights, Richard Klein

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

We Are The (National) Champions: Understanding The Mechanisms Of State Capitalism In China, Li-Wen Lin, Curtis J. Milhaupt

All Faculty Publications

While China appears to present a new variety of capitalism, frequently labeled "state capitalism," the features of this system - particularly the organizational structure surrounding China’s most important state-owned enterprises (the national champions) - remains a black box. Corporate governance scholarship on China has focused on listed firms, but listed SOEs in China are nested in vertically integrated corporate groups, and the groups are strategically linked to other business groups, as well as to the Communist Party and to governmental organs. While the parent company of the listed firms has a governmental controlling shareholder in the form of an agency …

China's Turn Against Law, Carl F. Minzner

Faculty Scholarship

Chinese authorities are reconsidering legal reforms they enacted in the 1980s and 1990s. These reforms had emphasized law, litigation, and courts as institutions for resolving civil grievances between citizens and administrative grievances against the state. But social stability concerns have led top leaders to question these earlier reforms. Central Party leaders now fault legal reforms for insufficiently responding to (or even generating) surging numbers of petitions and protests.

Chinese authorities have now drastically altered course. Substantively, they are de-emphasizing the role of formal law and court adjudication. They are attempting to revive pre-1978 Maoist-style court mediation practices. Procedurally, Chinese authorities …

How Much Should China Pollute?, John C. Nagle

Journal Articles

The debate concerning how much China should pollute is at the heart of international negotiations regarding climate change and environmental protection more generally. China is the world’s leading polluter and leading emitter of greenhouse gases. It insists that it has a right to emit as much as it wants in the future. China interprets the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities” to mean that China has a responsibility to help avoid the harmful consequences associated with climate change, but that its responsibility is different from that imposed on the United States and the rest of the developed world. In fact, …

Two Paths For Developing Anti-Avoidance Rules, Wei Cui

All Faculty Publications

The author discusses the administration of anti-avoidance rules in China, and puts forth the argument that anti-avoidance rules are being applied in China not only in the absence of the rule of law, but also parallel to the rule of law. He suggests that Chinese taxpayers and tax administrators collectively have the choice of pursuing discussions about the boundary between legitimate and illegitimate tax planning along two paths the rule of law figures as an important norm, while in the other it t, and he discusses how each works in China.

China: A New (Furtive) Approach To Taxing International Transportation Income, Wei Cui

All Faculty Publications

Donghwa Industrial Corporation v. Weihai Huancui State Tax Bureau: China's New (Furtive) Approach to Taxing International Transportation Income

Towards A Convention For The International Sale Of Real Property: Challenges, Commonalities, And Possibilities, Christopher K. Odinet

Faculty Scholarship

In a world that is increasingly global in scope, society has come to view the ever-growing body of international commercial laws as being exceptionally important. This is evidenced through the adoption of several high profile pieces of legislation over the past several decades: International Interest in Mobile Equipment - Study LXXI, the EU’s Draft Common Frame of Reference, the EU Directives on Consumer Protection, and, most noteworthy of all, the Convention for the International Sale of Goods (CISG).

As raised by Professors Sprankling, Coletta, and Mirow, what has been conspicuously absent from this growing body of laws is an international …

Climate Policy & U.S.-China Relations, Jason J. Czarnezki

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The Chinese stance, that no cap on carbon emissions will ever exist no matter how high, may be a product of China's belief in a cold and hard, and potentially true, reality-that global economic power is paramount and will provide the only avenue to adapt to an inevitable climate crisis, as well as achieve the milestones of superpower status, many of which they have already achieved (e.g., Olympic Games, World Expo, United Nations Security Council). While China's policy remains problematic, as is United States' failure to lead in the international community on the issue of climate change, China's actions, while …