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Empirical Research Into The Chinese Judicial System, Donald C. Clarke
Empirical Research Into The Chinese Judicial System, Donald C. Clarke
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
The last few years have seen a proliferation of programs by Western states and international agencies designed, in broad terms, to promote reforms in the Chinese judicial system. What is not clear, however, is whether there has been systematic thinking about the precise goals to be sought in these and other projects, whether these goals are appropriate, and indeed whether their achievement can even be ascertained in some measurable way. This paper is an attempt to think about what we know, what we might want to know, and what we can know about China's judicial system, broadly defined.
A key …
Puzzling Observations In Chinese Law: When Is A Riddle Just A Mistake?, Donald C. Clarke
Puzzling Observations In Chinese Law: When Is A Riddle Just A Mistake?, Donald C. Clarke
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
Understanding the Chinese legal system is not simple because it is (probably) very different from a Western one. The understanding of the Chinese legal system that results from any study will depend crucially on the selection of a paradigm with which to define what counts as an observation and against which to measure and assess the observations, either descriptively or normatively. This is not to say that the selection of a paradigm will make the difference between understanding and not understanding. It will, however, make a difference between understanding in one way and understanding in another way. Whether one of …
China's Legal System And The Wto: Prospects For Compliance, Donald C. Clarke
China's Legal System And The Wto: Prospects For Compliance, Donald C. Clarke
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
The impact of WTO membership both on China and its trading partners, both for good and for ill, has been greatly overstated. WTO treaty obligations and Dispute Settlement Body rulings will not become part of Chinese domestic unless specifically incorporated by Chinese legislation. Moreover, the WTO does not require a perfect legal system of its members; instead, it requires a degree of transparency and fairness in certain limited areas. Although some of China's WTO commitments will be difficult for it to fulfill, even non-fulfillment will not result in the predicted flood of WTO dispute settlement proceedings, since such proceedings can …
Corporate Governance In China: An Overview, Donald C. Clarke
Corporate Governance In China: An Overview, Donald C. Clarke
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
Corporate governance (gongsi zhili) is a concept whose time seems definitely to have come in China. Chinese definitions of corporate governance in the abstract tend to cover the system regulating relationships among all parties with interests in a business organization, usually spelling out shareholders as a particularly important group (e.g., Liu, 1999; Yin, 1999). But Chinese corporate governance discourse in practice focuses almost exclusively on agency problems and within only two types of firms: state-owned enterprises (SOEs), particularly after their transformation into one of the corporate forms provided for under the Company Law,1 and listed companies, which must be companies …
Economic Development And The Rights Hypothesis: The China Problem, Donald C. Clarke
Economic Development And The Rights Hypothesis: The China Problem, Donald C. Clarke
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
An important school of thought in institutional economics (the "Rights Hypothesis") holds that economic growth requires a legal order offering stable and predictable rights of property and contract because the absence of such rights discourages investment and specialization. Without the security of expectations offered by such a legal order, according to the Rights Hypothesis, the risks of a great number of otherwise beneficial transactions far outweigh their expected return, and as a result such transactions simply do not occur. Society is mired in an economy of short-term deals between actors bound by non-legal ties such as family solidarity which by …
Taiwan And The Wt0, Steve Charnovitz
Taiwan And The Wt0, Steve Charnovitz
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
This paper is about Taiwan and the World Trade Organization. It discusses the history of Taiwan's involvement in the world trading system and the accession to the WTO. The paper then notes some unique features of Taiwan's membership and discusses the current political tension with China in the WTO. The paper ends with a discussion of the implications of Taiwan's membership in the WTO for potential Taiwanese membership in other international organizations.