Recent Publications

USALI Research Scholar Chi Yin Explains Trump's Criminal Conviction for Chinese Readers

U.S.-Asia Law Institute Research Scholar Chi Yin published an article, “People of the State of New York v. Donald J. Trump: The Trial and Conviction of a Former U.S. President,” on Wolters Kluwer’s Chinese language website. She and her co-author, Arthur Chiu of Cyan Law Firm, analyze the former president’s conviction in the hush-money case to clarify common misunderstandings in China about the US criminal justice system and its relationship to the political system. Read more.

ChinaFile: What Future for International NGOs in China? by USALI Executive Director Katherine Wilhelm

USALI Executive Director Katherine Wilhelm recently published a commentary as part of a ChinaFile Conversation titled “What Future for International NGOs in China?” Wilhelm wrote:

No organization should compromise its mission in order to keep a China program active. And virtually no one would consciously do that: It could alienate staff and key stakeholders and court public controversy. Staying in China is not an end in itself. At the same time, it is difficult for large organizations to completely ignore China given its impact on the planet. The real dilemma, therefore, is figuring out how to achieve the organizational mission as it applies to China.

Read “What Future for International NGOs in China?

"Beijing’s Crackdown on Human Rights and the Rule of Law in Hong Kong" by Michael C. Davis

This essay examines how Beijing’s escalating crackdown on Hong Kong has systematically imposed authoritarian policies that undermine international human rights and the rule of law, abandoning China’s commitments both to the Hong Kong people and to the international community.

JILP: Biden's International Law Restoration by USALI Faculty Director José Alvarez

USALI Faculty Director and NYU Law Herbert and Rose Rubin Professor of International Law José Alvarez recently published an article in NYU Law’s Journal of International Law and Politics (JILP) entitled “Biden’s International Law Restoration,” in Volume 53, Number 2 – Winter 2021. JILP is a student-run publication devoted to commentary on contemporary issues in international and comparative law. JILP features articles on international legal topics by leading scholars and practitioners and notes, case comments, and book annotations written by journal members.

Read Biden’s International Law Restoration, 53 N.Y.U. J. Int’l L. & Pol. 523 (2021).

Hong Kong: The End of Delusion

As the Hong Kong and Beijing governments continue their assault on civil society in the territory — through tactics ranging from arbitrary arrests and attacks on the legal profession to the gutting of liberal studies and the inculcation of loyalty to the CCP in the guise of "patriotism," neither "China experts" at large, nor professedly left-leaning academics, have engaged in any critical self-reflection on their culpability in Hong Kong's demise, writes Alvin Y.H. Cheung.

The Asia Pacific Journal: Comparative Reflections on the Carlos Ghosn Case and Japanese Criminal Justice

The arrest and prosecution of Nissan executive Carlos Ghosn, together with his dramatic flight from Japan, have focused unprecedented attention on Japan’s criminal justice system. This article employs comparison with the United States to examine issues in Japanese criminal justice highlighted by the Ghosn case.

Labour Protections for Overseas Chinese Workers: Legal Framework and Judicial Practice

On October 16, 2020, USALI Affiliated Scholar Aaron Halegua and Assistant Professor Xiaohui Ban of Wuhan University School of Law recently published an article in The Chinese Journal of Comparative Law.

SCMP: A decade after Chinese human rights lawyers Tang Jitian and Liu Wei were disbarred, much has changed – for the worse

Despite the coronavirus pandemic, liberal democracies and lawyers around the world must advocate for persecuted human rights lawyers in China, who are subject to arrests, prison sentences, disbarments and enforced disappearances.

Transitional Justice in Taiwan: Changes and Challenges

Transitional Justice in Taiwan: Changes and Challenges

Taiwan’s experience with transitional justice over the past three decades suggests that dealing with historical injustice is a dynamic and fluid process that is fundamentally shaped and constrained by the balance of power and socio-political reality in a particular transitional society. This Article provides a contextualized legal-political analysis of the evolution of Taiwan’s transitional justice regime, with special attention to its limits and challenges.

Osaka High Court clears grandmother in an SBS case

USALI is pleased to report the recent developments from Innocence Project Japan and their work to overturn a shaken-baby-syndrome case. Below is an English summary taken from the Shaken Baby Review website, written by IPJ partner Kana Sasakura of Konan University.