February 12-18
China
The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights conducted its periodic review of China’s implementation of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The committee also reviewed the performance of Hong Kong and Macau. Chen Xu, China’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, described China’s accomplishments since its last review in 2014, including reduction of rural poverty. Committee experts asked about China’s “vocational training centers” for Uyghurs, Tibetans, and other minorities, as well as forced labor, income inequality, and provision of social welfare. China’s delegation said the centers deradicalized “terrorists” and again denied the existence of forced labor.
The Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP) said that procuratorates nationwide have prosecuted more than 78,000 state employees for various crimes of corruption and bribery over the past five years, including more than 100 former cadres at the provincial level or above. In just the first 11 months of 2022, procuratorates prosecuted 1,704 people for bribe-giving; during that same period, supervisory commissions -- China’s joint party-state anti-corruption organs -- transferred more than 18,607 suspects to procuratorates for judicial prosecution.
The Supreme People’s Court (SPC) announced the launch of a new digital platform that judges can reference when deciding cases. The new unified application of law platform (统一法律适用平台) includes past court judgments, laws and regulations, guiding cases and other types of reference cases, and theoretical research materials. It is not open to the public. SPC President Zhou Qiang said the platform’s purpose is to promote the unified application of law. According to a 2021 SPC document, under certain circumstances judges are required to search for similar case decisions before deciding a case before them.
A Dalian man who was first convicted of murdering his girlfriend in 2016 but was exonerated after appealing has been convicted a second time and sentenced a second time to death with a two-year reprieve. After his initial conviction by the Dalian Intermediate Court, Xin Long appealed to the Liaoning High Court, which said the evidence was insufficient and ordered a retrial. Xin Long was acquitted in his second trial and received state compensation for his wrong conviction. After petitioning by the victim’s family, prosecutors reopened the case and began a process that caused the Supreme People’s Court to order a third trial.
Hong Kong
Hong Kong’s lands department added national security clauses to all land sale and short-term lease tender documents. Under the new rules, a buyer can be disqualified if it or its parent firm engages in activities that endanger national security or affect public order.
Hong Kong’s Department of Justice announced the opening of a preparatory office that will work to establish an International Organization for Mediation (IOMed) and begin negotiations for a Convention on the Establishment of the International Organization for Mediation. The IOMed is intended to provide “friendly, flexible, economical, and efficient mediation services for settling international disputes,” according to the department. The Hong Kong government and Chinese foreign ministry first announced plans for the IOMed in October 2022. At that time, the ministry said China and other unidentified states had signed a joint declaration calling for establishment of the IOMed as the first multilateral international organization to specialize in mediation.
A court sentenced seven people to up to three years in jail for rioting outside government headquarters in Admiralty on Sept. 29, 2019, during Hong Kong’s prolonged protests against an extradition arrangement with mainland China. An eighth defendant who was sixteen at the time of the incident will be sentenced later. Protesters that day marched, set up roadblocks, and clashed with the police. The judge said that while the defendants did not play a leadership role, their participation “generated momentum.” In a separate trial, Alvin Cheng, a former member of the pro-democracy group Civic Passion, was sentenced to three years and eight months in prison for taking part in a riot at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University in 2019. Thousands of protesters barricaded themselves inside the university for over two weeks in a face-off against the police.
Japan
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida met with representatives of LGBTQ groups and offered an apology for discriminatory remarks made by his former aide Masayoshi Arai that sparked nationwide outrage. Arai said to reporters earlier this month that he wouldn’t want to live next to LGBTQ people and that citizens would flee Japan if same-sex marriages were allowed. Kishida fired Arai and appointed former Justice Minister Masako Mori as his special aide in charge of promoting understanding for LGBTQ people.
Koreas
South Korean Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup said the military does not accept the recent court ruling holding South Korean marines responsible for killing civilians during the Vietnam War. The Seoul Central District Court ordered the South Korean government to pay close to 30 million won (US$24,000) to a Vietnamese woman who was wounded and whose family members were killed by South Korean marines fighting on the US side in Vietnam in 1968. Lee maintained that South Korean troops stationed in Vietnam did not massacre unarmed civilians, and suggested that the military will appeal the decision.
North Korea issued a joint order to party and government agencies to implement a new state secrets protection law. The law was adopted at a parliamentary meeting earlier this month. The joint order calls for strengthening the secrets management system by subdividing and reorganizing secret document ratings, adopting and improving electronic documents management, grading people who can store, read, and take documents, and improving the protection and encryption of state secrets.
Taiwan
President Tsai Ing-wen announced passage of the Climate Change Response Act (氣候變遷因應法), which amended and replaced the Greenhouse Gas Reduction and Management Act (溫室氣體減量及管理法), and codifies Taiwan’s goal of reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. The act aims to establish coping mechanisms in response to climate change while also reducing and monitoring the emission of greenhouse gases. New provisions include raising emission reduction goals, introducing new incentives and deterrents, and establishing the responsibilities of stakeholders across different sectors.
A survey by a crime research center at National Chung Cheng University (CCU) shows that among 1,806 respondents, more than 73% approve of law enforcement efforts to safeguard public security, and 83% approve of public safety conditions around their residence and local neighborhoods. However, 54% of respondents said they were not satisfied with government efforts “to strengthen the social safety net,” and only 32.8% indicated satisfaction when asked if “judges make fair and rightful rulings on criminal cases.” The survey shows that the public wants a more proactive approach and stronger efforts by the government to combat serious crimes, said Ma Yao-chung (馬躍中), head of CCU’s criminology department.