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"The Best Laid Schemes . . . ": Land-Use Planning And Historic Preservation In Cambodia, William Chapman
"The Best Laid Schemes . . . ": Land-Use Planning And Historic Preservation In Cambodia, William Chapman
Washington International Law Journal
This Article examines existing land use laws and proposed historic preservation-related legislation in Cambodia and offers a critical appraisal of their applicability and hopes for success. Cambodia is a small country that faces (and has faced) numerous political and economic difficulties. It possesses a rich architectural and archaeological heritage that is threatened by proposed land-use changes and future development. Initiated primarily by outsiders, principally planners and archaeologists from Europe and the United States, Cambodia's newly formulated land-use laws attempt to take irreplaceable cultural resources into account. However, plans such as those proposed by UNESCO and consultants to the government appear …
Infrastructure Services And Financing In Chinese Cities, Kam Wing Chan
Infrastructure Services And Financing In Chinese Cities, Kam Wing Chan
Washington International Law Journal
As urbanization accelerates and cities expand their role in the Chinese economy, expensive urban infrastructural facilities and financing have become major policy issues. Drawing on fieldwork in five cities in 1994 as well as national statistics, this Article analyzes the provision of urban infrastructure services and financing. As marketization proceeds, an overhaul of the urban public finance system, along with a redefinition of the role of local government in China, is urgently required.
Listing Of Tangible Cultural Properties: Expanded Recognition For Historic Buildings In Japan, Chester H. Liebs
Listing Of Tangible Cultural Properties: Expanded Recognition For Historic Buildings In Japan, Chester H. Liebs
Washington International Law Journal
Since the late 19th century, Japan has enacted a series of measures to protect its cultural heritage, most importantly the 1950 Law for the Protection of Cultural Properties. With subsequent amendments, the law today provides for the protection of both individual and groups of historical structures, landscapes, traditional crafts and skills, as well as national treasures. While these laws have saved many of the nation's foremost cultural resources, a substantial number of important historic structures, especially from the Meiji Period (1868) onward, have fallen through this legal safety net. This Article summarizes the evolution of Japan's cultural properties protection legislation, …
Customary Title, Heritage Protection, And Property Rights In Australia: Emerging Patterns Of Land Use In The Post-Mabo Era, Maureen Tehan
Customary Title, Heritage Protection, And Property Rights In Australia: Emerging Patterns Of Land Use In The Post-Mabo Era, Maureen Tehan
Washington International Law Journal
The Mabo decision represented a major doctrinal change in the relationship between Indigenous people and the settler legal system. However, significant legislative developments in land use and management recognizing some Indigenous interests in land had already laid the groundwork for joint land management schemes and concurrent land uses. These developments have formed the basis for ongoing expansion of coexistent land uses with the negotiation of formal and informal agreements for co-management of land. A range of factors influence these agreements, including the existence of enforceable property rights and non-property based heritage protection legislation. These regimes are currently in a state …
A Lesson In Ingenuity: Chinese Farmers, The State, And The Reclamation Of Farmland For Most Any Use, Kari Madrene Larson
A Lesson In Ingenuity: Chinese Farmers, The State, And The Reclamation Of Farmland For Most Any Use, Kari Madrene Larson
Washington International Law Journal
Since 1978, China has achieved significant improvements in the rural sector through the adoption of the baogan daohu system, which effectively dismantled the communal farming system and created individual family farms. However, meaningful measures must be taken to ensure that farmers have continued use of their farmland and that illegal land reclamation by local govermnents is halted. Because farmers' rights are not clearly articulated and cannot be readily enforced, local governments appear to be beyond central government control. Furthermore, due to the state's right to reclaim land under any logic, farmers' rights may ultimately be nonexistent. Though developing a meaningful …
The Rhetoric And Reality Of Water Quality Protection In China, W. Scott Railton
The Rhetoric And Reality Of Water Quality Protection In China, W. Scott Railton
Washington International Law Journal
With the majority of its freshwater sources polluted, and the pursuant incurrence of significant economic losses, and substantial health risks, China has reached a critical stage in its water resource management. Past efforts to legislate for water quality protection, although promising in content, have been less than effective. Four modes of enforcement—administrative controls, economic incentives, legal responsibility, and campaigns—have achieved only moderate success. This Comment examines the statutory and regulatory framework for water pollution control in China and suggests that if China's water pollution controls are ever to be more than mere rhetoric, China must focus on eliminating conflicts of …
Land Law Subsystems? Urban Vietnam As A Case Study, John Gillespie
Land Law Subsystems? Urban Vietnam As A Case Study, John Gillespie
Washington International Law Journal
Throughout Vietnam's long history, the central elite and peripheral farming communities have been legally and culturally divided. This dichotomy was never as complete as the famous injunction that "the emperor's writ stops at the village gate" infers. Initially, during the period of French colonisation and more recently since the introduction of doi moi (renovation) economic reforms, central authorities have attempted to unify land management with universal normative law. This experiment has stimulated widespread non-compliance with land laws in urban centres; in some areas compliance is a fringe phenomenon. In this divided legal geography, pockets of non-compliance give the appearance of …
Korea's Greenbelts: Impacts And Options For Change, Chang-Hee Christine Bae
Korea's Greenbelts: Impacts And Options For Change, Chang-Hee Christine Bae
Washington International Law Journal
The discussions about urban growth boundaries in the United States have paid little attention to Korea's Greenbelt policy. Established in 1971, Seoul's massive Greenbelt has been rigidly maintained, although there have been some minor exceptions over the years. The liberalization of the Korean economy and the democratization of Korean society have been accompanied by deregulation in many spheres. However, land use planning remains tightly constrained, and there has only been minimal relaxation of the land laws; in fact, on balance they have become tougher. Some scholars have begun to question whether the Greenbelt might have restricted economic growth in Korea …
Managing Urban Land In China: The Emerging Legal Framework And Its Role In Development, Mark T. Kremzner
Managing Urban Land In China: The Emerging Legal Framework And Its Role In Development, Mark T. Kremzner
Washington International Law Journal
This Article examines the emerging legal framework for urban land management in China with reference to several perspectives on the role of the state in economic development: modernization, dependency, and statism. A key function of the urban land management and planning regime in the People's Republic of China is to promote economic development. Similarly, law and legal institutions in the reform era are used as an instrument to secure development policies. China's urban land use laws have the purpose and effect of channeling capital into land development and urban renewal projects through the commodification of land use rights. While the …
Square Pegs And Round Holes: Fitting Modern Title Into Traditional Societies In Indonesia, Timothy Lindsey
Square Pegs And Round Holes: Fitting Modern Title Into Traditional Societies In Indonesia, Timothy Lindsey
Washington International Law Journal
In Indonesia, diverse interests in land recognised by dozens, maybe hundreds, of different adat (traditional customary legal systems) coexist with a Dutch-derived system of land title. The most problematic adat interest is traditional communal title, or hak ulayat. Indonesia's New Order government sees adat rights—and hak ulayat in particular—as incompatible with the demands of economic development. Although some adat rights are recognised in the key statute regulating interests in land, the Basic Agrarian Law, the New Order government has systematically subverted the standing of adat. Likewise, the land registration system has become a corrupt failure, with the consequence …
Testing The Partnership Model Of Growth Management, Jeffrey Patterson
Testing The Partnership Model Of Growth Management, Jeffrey Patterson
Washington International Law Journal
Three major events can be expected to influence land use and tenure in British Columbia, Canada, well into the future. A new Forest Practices Code and harvesting regulations and settlement of aboriginal land claims will profoundly affect B.C.'s rural and wilderness landscape. A third initiative, a growth management strategy act adopted by the B.C. legislature in 1995 will, however, potentially have a major impact on the urban landscape that most British Columbians experience in their daily lives. Its objective is the promotion of human settlements that are socially, economically and environmentally halthy. This paper explores the particular geographic and political …
Getting A Seat At The Table: Giving The Indigenous Peoples Of The Russian Far East Control Over Local Government, Stephen R. King
Getting A Seat At The Table: Giving The Indigenous Peoples Of The Russian Far East Control Over Local Government, Stephen R. King
Washington International Law Journal
The traditional homelands of the indigenous peoples of Siberia and the Russian Far East harbor vast wealth in the form of timber, minerals, oil, and gas. Throughout much of the 20th Century, the Soviet Union used forced relocation of native peoples, expropriation of native lands, and other harsh means to gain access to these resources. The native peoples received little or no compensation for the vast natural wealth that the Soviet government took from their lands, and the government often left the land so polluted that it could no longer support the native people's hunting and herding ways-of-life. The Russian …
One Country, Two Systems: Theory Into Practice, Guiguo Wang, Priscilla M F Leung
One Country, Two Systems: Theory Into Practice, Guiguo Wang, Priscilla M F Leung
Washington International Law Journal
The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region was established on July 1, 1997, when the former colony was handed over by Britain to China. Thereafter the policy of "One Country, Two Systems" began as dictated by the Basic Law. This article examines the evolution of the "One Country, Two Systems" policy and discusses how this policy has been reflected in the Basic Law. As any change in the Basic Law may affect the implementation of this policy, and perhaps the stability and prosperity of Hong Kong, this article also analyses the scheme, policies and rules in relation to interpreting and amending …
The 1997 U.S.-Japan Defense Guidelines Under The Japanese Constitution And Their Implications For U.S. Foreign Policy, Chris Ajemian
The 1997 U.S.-Japan Defense Guidelines Under The Japanese Constitution And Their Implications For U.S. Foreign Policy, Chris Ajemian
Washington International Law Journal
The 1997 U.S.-Japan Defense Guidelines represent additional commitment by Japan to the U.S.-Japan security alliance, the primary source of Northeast Asian security and stability. Certain tasks within Japan's enhanced role raise questions of whether the Guidelines are compatible with Article 9 of Japan's Constitution. On its face, Article 9 renounces Japan's right to wage war or maintain military force, yet it has been interpreted to allow a defensively-oriented, though massive, military. Based on the existing interpretation of Article 9, it is likely that Japan will declare its new role under the Guidelines constitutional. U.S. policy toward Japan in the short-term …
Malaysia's "Computer Crimes Act 1997" Gets Tough On Cybercrime But Fails To Advance The Development Of Cyberlaws, Donna L. Beatty
Malaysia's "Computer Crimes Act 1997" Gets Tough On Cybercrime But Fails To Advance The Development Of Cyberlaws, Donna L. Beatty
Washington International Law Journal
Malaysia is in the process of developing the Multimedia Super Corridor ("MSC"), a high-tech zone sometimes called "the Silicon Valley of the East." As a way of attracting investors to the MSC, Malaysia is adopting business-friendly policies and comprehensive "cyberlaws" designed to assure MSC participants that they and their technology will be protected. One of Malaysia's many goals is to be a leader in the development of cyberlaws. However, the Computer Crimes Act 1997 is too flawed to place Malaysia in that role. The Computer Crimes Act is designed to prevent computer crimes such as hacking, virus planting and the …
Discrimination Down Under: Lessons From The Australian Experience In Prohibiting Employment Discrimination On The Basis Of Sexual Orientation, Joshua Colangelo-Bryan
Discrimination Down Under: Lessons From The Australian Experience In Prohibiting Employment Discrimination On The Basis Of Sexual Orientation, Joshua Colangelo-Bryan
Washington International Law Journal
Australia offers greater legislative protection against employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation than does the United States. This difference is not due to greater social or political awareness on the part of Australians. Rather, Australian federal law results from the work of progressive national committees given wide discretion to address discrimination under international agreements to which Australia is a party. The creation of Australian federal laws is not instructive in the U.S. context because the limited scope of these laws is incompatible with American discrimination statutes. Furthermore, the process by which sexual orientation became a proscribed ground under …
The First Step Forward—The Aids Dismissal Case And The Protection Against Aids-Based Employment Discrimination In Japan, Marc Lim
Washington International Law Journal
The fight against AIDS in Japan, a journey that has encountered much resistance from a Japanese public and corporate sector ill-educated on the disease, may have taken a new turn. Before 1995, employees infected with HIV or suffering from AIDS had little recourse in fighting against the discrimination they faced in their private lives and in the Japanese corporate sector. With the AIDS Dismissal Case, the Japanese judiciary, in a show of judicial activism, found the dismissal of an HIV-infected worker based upon his HIV status illegal and an infringement upon the worker's human rights. In addition, the court found …
Erosion Of The Indigenous Right To Negotiate In Australia: Proposed Amendments To The Native Title Act, Gretchen Freeman Cappio
Erosion Of The Indigenous Right To Negotiate In Australia: Proposed Amendments To The Native Title Act, Gretchen Freeman Cappio
Washington International Law Journal
The Australian government seeks to amend the Native Title Act, which presently gives indigenous Australians real property rights by virtue of their history living on the land. In their present form, the proposed amendments to the Native Title Act threaten indigenous representation regarding land disputes. The right to negotiate currently protected by the Act must be preserved, ensuring indigenous participation as well as consensual and procedural agreement. The government should not change its course: indigenous parties deserve the same rights today as were granted just five years ago. Government and indigenous leaders must work cooperatively to draft new amendments to …
Harmonizing The Japanese Patent Sytem With Its U.S. Counterpart Through Judge-Made Law: Interaction Between Japanese And U.S. Case Law Developments, Toshiko Takenaka
Harmonizing The Japanese Patent Sytem With Its U.S. Counterpart Through Judge-Made Law: Interaction Between Japanese And U.S. Case Law Developments, Toshiko Takenaka
Washington International Law Journal
Japanese jurisprudence has been strongly influenced by German jurisprudence, but this trend is changing because more legal professionals including judges, patent attorneys and patent office examiners study at U.S. Law Schools. Some recent Japanese court decisions reflect this strong influence from U.S. jurisprudence. Particularly, the influence is significant in the field of patent claim interpretation, courts' power to review the validity, parallel importation and patent infringement damages. This article concludes that there are few significant differences remaining between the U.S. and Japanese patent laws, and Japanese courts' eagerness to adopt U.S patent law significantly contributes to harmonizing the remaining differences.
1998 And Beyond In New Caledonia: At Freedom's Gate?, Alan Berman
1998 And Beyond In New Caledonia: At Freedom's Gate?, Alan Berman
Washington International Law Journal
This article examines the upcoming 1998 referendum on self-determination in New Caledonia through the larger contextual lens of French historical involvement in the territory. The article addresses the impact French colonization has had on Kanak culture, legal institutions, social organization and economic livelihood. The historical policies of the French government are canvassed by exploring the manner in which France manipulated the legal process and political institutions it created in New Caledonia to entrench colonial control. The article concludes that the process of decolonization is unlikely to be completed in the near future. Finally, the article discusses the potential consequences for …
Local Public Employment Discrimination Against Korean Permanent Residents In Japan: A U.S. Perspective, James M. Kearney
Local Public Employment Discrimination Against Korean Permanent Residents In Japan: A U.S. Perspective, James M. Kearney
Washington International Law Journal
Japanese government officials have recently indicated a willingness to relax restrictions that have prohibited Korean permanent residents of Japan from competing for local civil service jobs, though changes have not yet been forthcoming. The current bar on resident aliens has important symbolic and practical significance in a country widely criticized for its entrenched racism and for its lack of substantive civil rights law. This Comment traces the history and special circumstances of Koreans in Japan and argues that Koreans are already protected from most kinds of public employment discrimination by Article 22 (freedom to choose an occupation) and Article 14 …
Affirmative Action, Ethnic Minorities And China's Universities, Barry Sautman
Affirmative Action, Ethnic Minorities And China's Universities, Barry Sautman
Washington International Law Journal
China greatly expanded its longstanding set of preferential policies for ethnic minorities in the 1980s and 1990s. Affirmative action in higher education annually allows for the admission of tens of thousands of ethnic minority students who, based on their national entrance examination scores alone, would be unable to gain a much sought-after place in one of the country's thousand universities. The variety of ways in which the admission and retention of PRC minority students are facilitated by laws, regulations and policies are examined, as are attitudes toward affirmative action on the part of Han majority and ethnic minority students. In …
The Right To A Fair Trial In China, Daphne Huang
The Right To A Fair Trial In China, Daphne Huang
Washington International Law Journal
The right to a fair trial is a growing international standard that protects defendant rights before, during, and after trial. Despite significant changes to China's Criminal Procedure Law and Criminal Law, China presently fails to comply with the standard. China's history of human rights abuses and the obstacles to compliance make enforcement of the right seem an insunnountable task. However, the trends of democratization and economic globalization, combined with optimistic reports of political reform in China provide hope that compliance with the right will eventually be achieved.
Labor Relations And The Law In South Korea, Laura Watson
Labor Relations And The Law In South Korea, Laura Watson
Washington International Law Journal
This Comment looks at labor legislation's role in shaping the present state of labor relations in South Korea A brief history of the government's symbiotic relationship with business serves as a backdrop for assessing the current laws. The laws have an employer bias accenluated by the broad administrative oversighit government has over labor relations. More troublesome provisions of the laws are considered in detail. This Comment then turns to recent pro-labor changes in the laws but discusses why labor unions are unlikely to achieve full equality in labor relations at this juncture. In conclusion, this Comment makes suggestions for change …