This presentation took place on April 1, 2020. Senior Research Fellow Ira Belkin, joined by USALI staff Allen Clayton-Greene, Amy Gao, Yin Chi, and Eli Blood-Patterson, talked about the U.S.-Asia Law Institute's (USALI) five-year-long program: "Preventing and Redressing Wrongful Convictions." Through this program, international experts and individuals who were themselves wrongfully convicted and later exonerated shared their knowledge with the Asian criminal justice community regarding the root causes of wrongful convictions and measures that can be adopted to prevent and redress them. Belkin discusses the project background, activities, and lessons learned, while USALI staff members share the long-term impact the program has had in Taiwan, China, and Japan respectively.

Over the course of the four year program, approximately 70 criminal justice experts from Asia participated in intensive month-long workshops at NYU and over 500 Chinese and Japanese experts attended lectures given by USALI-sponsored international experts in China and Japan, respectively. The use of social media expanded the audience in Asia to hundreds of thousands. The project has led to the expansion of Innocence work in Asia as well as more Asian experts joining the international community of lawyers doing Innocence work. Project participants published several books and numerous articles in multiple languages on topics relevant to Innocence work, from how common interrogation techniques can lead to false confessions to why prisons should have law libraries.

EVENT VIDEOS

Part I: Senior Research Scholar Ira Belkin introduces the project.

Part II: Senior Research Scholar Ira Belkin introduces the project activities.

Part III: Research Scholar Yin Chi discusses innocence work in China.

Part IV: Research Scholar Allen Clayton-Greene introduces innocence work in Taiwan.

Part V: Research Scholar Amy Gao introduces innocence work in Japan.

Part VI: Program Manager and Research Scholar Eli Blood-Patterson introduces innocence work in the United States.

Part VII: Lessons Learned with Senior Research Scholar Ira Belkin