Promoting Rule of Law and Human Rights in Asia
The U.S.-Asia Law Institute serves as a bridge between Asia and America, fostering mutual understanding on legal issues, and using constructive engagement with our partners to advocate for legal reform.
New and Notable
In 2019, Matthew S. Erie, an associate professor of modern Chinese studies and member of the law faculty at Oxford University, began an ambitious project called China Law and Development in an effort to understand the role that law plays, directly or indirectly, in China’s outbound investment. As he wraps up the project in 2024, the U.S.-Asia Law Institute invited Professor Erie to share some of what he has learned
Beginning in the 1950s, Japan’s Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) has been an important instrument for Japanese diplomacy. Its initial focus on economic development in Asia was characterized as being both nonmilitary and nonpolitical. However, this cold war strategy has evolved over the past two decades, in large part due to the rise of China, to include both national security challenges and the promotion of universal values. How will Japanese ODA policy respond to the current challenge of striking a balance between promoting universal values and avoiding offense to recipient governments? Can Japan play a special role as the developed world’s “ambassador” to the Global South? Hiroaki Shiga, a professor at Yokohama National University, will join NYU Law Adjunct Professor Bruce Aronson in a conversation on the evolution and current challenges of Japan’s ODA policy
Nippon Steel’s planned purchase of former giant U.S. Steel is currently the most important and controversial topic in US-Japan economic relations. Regardless of whether the purchase is ultimately allowed to proceed, the public opposition from leaders of both American parties raises important questions for the future. What effect could this have on other Japanese FDI into the US and broader US-Japan cooperation? Is there a risk of reciprocity when US companies seek to make acquisitions in Japan? To what extent does it represent a significant broadening of the definition of “national security” against the background trend of de-globalization and the reshoring of supply chains? William Chou, deputy director of the Japan Center at the Hudson Institute, and Hiroyuki Nishimura of Nikkei will put the Nippon Steel-U.S. Steel acquisition in context in a panel discussion with NYU Law Adjunct Professor Bruce Aronson and NYU Law Professor Jose Alvarez (moderating)
What is the status of Taiwan under international law? In the second of our speaker series “Taiwan Legal,” Peter Dutton, senior research scholar at the Paul Tsai China Center of Yale Law School, will unpack arguments about who has sovereignty over the island of Taiwan and adjoining small islands that its government controls. If Taiwan’s status is unsettled, does international law still recognize its government’s right of self-defense and the right of its friends to defend it?
Publications
By Matthew S. Erie
In 2019, Matthew S. Erie, an associate professor of modern Chinese studies and member of the law faculty at Oxford University, began an ambitious project called China Law and Development in an effort to understand the role that law plays, directly or indirectly, in China’s outbound investment. As he wraps up the project in 2024, the U.S.-Asia Law Institute invited Professor Erie to share some of what he has learned.
In September, the federal court in Brooklyn unsealed an indictment against Linda Sun, a former aide to New York Governor Kathy Hochul, for failing to register as a foreign agent of the government of the People’s Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party. Xuan W. Tay writes that while the art of influence is inseparable from the work of diplomacy, international law does not give PRC officials free rein to carry out influence operations inside other countries.
Institute News
November 10, 2024-November 16, 2024
Chinese police detain a man who they say drove his car into a group of people exercising at a sports center, killing 35; a Hong Kong reporter files a wrongful dismissal claim against the Wall Street Journal for firing her weeks after her election as the leader of the city’s largest press group; a South Korean court convicts opposition leader Lee Jae-myung of making false statements during his presidential campaign and gives him a suspended prison sentence; Japan’s prime minister keeps his job and vows to crack down on misuse of political funds; lawyers in Taiwan plan to protest against proposed legislation that could paralyze the Constitutional Court.
China revises its Anti-Money Laundering Law to address new forms of money laundering; the Hong Kong Law Society sends warning letters to sixteen lawyers associated with a fund that supported legal aid for 2019 protesters; Japanese opposition parties agree that the law governing political funds needs revision but not how to revise it; South Korea' fines Meta $15 million for collecting and sensitive user data and sharing it with advertisers; Taiwan's Ministry of Justice withdraws a proposal to increase the fines for various abortion-related illegal acts following an outcry from women's rights groups.
Join the Law Students for Human Rights for a discussion with Rayhan Asat and Kenneth Roth about China’s reshaping of international law to achieve its authoritarian agenda via a case study of the Uyghur homeland.
China announces policies intended to boost births; a Hong Kong court upholds a new rule blocking defendants in national security cases from calling overseas witness to testify virtually; a second Japanese high court rules that the country’s ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional; a South Korean court orders the state to compensate the family of a murder victim because police failed to identify and punish his killer; a Taiwan court extends the detentions of Taiwan People’s Party Chairman Ko Wen-je and other suspects in a high stakes bribery investigation.
In September, the federal court in Brooklyn unsealed an indictment against Linda Sun, a former aide to New York Governor Kathy Hochul, for failing to register as a foreign agent of the government of the People’s Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party. Xuan W. Tay writes that while the art of influence is inseparable from the work of diplomacy, international law does not give PRC officials free rein to carry out influence operations inside other countries.