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
Chinese companies that operate in the US face an increasingly complex legal and political landscape. Rising geopolitical tensions between China and the US make it difficult for Chinese multinationals to comply with the laws of both countries. But they are reluctant to leave the US, having made substantial investments here. In Negotiating Legality: Chinese Companies in the U.S. Legal System, Ji Li uses interviews and survey data to tell the story of how Chinese companies develop in-house legal capacities, engage with US legal professionals, and navigate litigation in US courts.
This Week in Asian Law (March 17-23): A Chinese court for the first time sentences a domestic abuser to prison for violating a constraining order; Hong Kong's legislature unanimously approves a national security law that imposes severe penalties for treason, insurrection, theft of state secrets, sabotage, and external interference; a Japanese district court rejects the claims of some mercury pollution victims; South Korea suspends the licenses of two doctors as it tries to end a month-long strike by interns and residents; Taiwan’s Ministry of Health and Welfare offers proposals for reforming the foster care and adoption system following the death of a 1-year-old from alleged abuse.
Poverty is often the face of a woman. Rangita de Silva de Alwis, a member of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, hopes that this year’s meeting of the UN Commission on the Status of Women will help make women the face of anti-poverty solutions.
When compared with other constitutional courts, Japan’s Supreme Court has often been dismissed as a timid institution. It has even been called “the most conservative constitutional court in the world.” Masahiko Kinoshita, a professor of law at Kobe University and leading constitutional law scholar, argues that this sells the court short. In a new paper, he says that in cases involving freedom of expression, voting rights, and representation, the court has protected the “democratic minimum core” values while strategically avoiding confrontation with the political branches.
Institute News
USALI Perspectives
Poverty is often the face of a woman. Rangita de Silva de Alwis, a member of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, hopes that this year’s meeting of the UN Commission on the Status of Women will help make women the face of anti-poverty solutions.
Taiwan’s recent general elections were accompanied by extensive attacks of online misinformation designed to confuse and disrupt the process. Authors Wen-Chen Chang and Yu-teng Lin argue that Taiwan’s response to these attacks embodies “civic constitutionalism” in action, with civil society organizations taking the lead to identify and correct the misinformation while the government played a supporting role.
A Chinese court for the first time sentences a domestic abuser to prison for violating a constraining order; Hong Kong's legislature unanimously approves a national security law that imposes severe penalties for treason, insurrection, theft of state secrets, sabotage, and external interference; a Japanese district court rejects the claims of some mercury pollution victims; South Korea suspends the licenses of two doctors as it tries to end a month-long strike by interns and residents; Taiwan’s Ministry of Health and Welfare offers proposals for reforming the foster care and adoption system following the death of a 1-year-old from alleged abuse.
China's legislature concludes its annual plenary session with no surprises and no press conference by Premier Li Qiang; Hong Kong legislators support giving new powers to the chief executive under the draft Safeguarding National Security bill; a Japanese high court rules that denying marriage to same-sex couples violates the constitution; South Korean prosecutors indict 11 former senior officials in the last administration of manipulating government housing and employment data for political purposes; Taiwan’s Supreme Court reverses itself and acquits an indigenous person of killing a protected species in a high-profile case.
One of the missions of the U.S.-Asia Law Institute is to facilitate scholarly exchanges between the US and East Asian countries, with Japan as one of our most important partners. USALI is part of a wider effort at NYU School of Law to be an international law school and foster scholarly conversation across borders. Pursuing these goals takes constant effort. Technology makes it easier for scholars around the world to read each other’s work, but we still face the barriers of language, culture, and divergent perspectives. Now as the world is increasingly fractured by geopolitical rivalries, might this ideal recede even further? Our extraordinary panel of discussants with a range of perspectives on international academic exchanges will talk about why scholarly exchanges matter, how we can incentivize them, and what we lose when scholarship becomes parochial, with a focus on the case of Japan-US exchanges.