International Law

Event Recording: The Future of U.S.-Japan Trade Relations

Asia is now at the center of global trade flows as well international treaty negotiations to address them. This is a rare opportunity to hear from two of the world’s foremost authorities on the trade relations between two of the economic superpowers in the region.

Event Recording: The Long View on Reform in Asia

Is the realignment/reform of investment treaty law having an effect of international law more generally? On regional integration in Asia? What areas of reform are not being addressed in ongoing efforts? How does investment treaty reform link with other areas of reform, both domestic and international?

Event Recordings: Government Perspectives on Reform – The View from Asian Capitals

As global reform activities continue gaining momentum, what do Asian governments think about these efforts? Are they reflective of the concerns of Asian states? How are governments managing the simultaneous reform of existing treaties and the negotiations of new ones? How are ASEAN countries in particular addressing reform? Is there (or could there be) an ASEAN (or Asian) voice on these issues?

Event Recording: Reforming the International Law of Foreign Investment – State of Play in International Organizations

The current period is one of unprecedented activity regarding the reform of the international investment law regime. This panel surveys ongoing efforts in different institutions to address procedural and substantive reform of the international law of foreign investment.

Event Recording: How the Rise of China Challenges Global Anti-Trust

Angela Zhang discusses her new book Chinese Antitrust Exceptionalism: How the Rise of China Challenges Global Regulation. Professor Zhang examines the unique ways in which China regulates and is regulated by foreign countries, revealing a “Chinese exceptionalism” that is reshaping global antitrust regulation.

Event Recording: Reforming the Global Public Health Regime: Asian Perspectives

Our panel of experts from Asia will share their ideas about how the world community should harness the emergency to improve the way global public health programs are organized and funded, both to address longstanding problems of health inequality and insecurity and prepare for future pandemics.

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).

Event Recording: How Novel is China’s Use of International Economic Law

Law Professors Fabio Morosini and Michelle R. Sanchez-Badin examine empirical data from Chinese investments in Brazil’s energy sector and find many similarities between China and Brazil in their choice of legal tools. What really sets China apart is the size of its economy, and therefore the greater impact its actions have on the existing legal order.

Centre for International Law (CIL): "Research and Writing on International Law Topics"

On December 2, 2020 Faculty Director Jose E. Alvarez presented on “Researching and Writing on International Law Topics” as part of a webinar for National University of Singapore’s Centre for International Law (CIL). You may watch the webinar below.

Event Recording: The Rise of China and International Law

Recorded October 21, 2020
One of China’s leading scholars writing about international law from a Chinese perspective, Professor Cai Congyan, will talk about the ways in which an increasingly wealthy and powerful China has evolved from “selective adaptation” of existing international legal norms to “norm entrepreneurship.”

Event Recording: World War II Reparations in Contemporary East Asia

Tim Webster, a professor of law, has dedicated many years to exploring the law, sociology, and politics of East Asia's World War II reparations movements -- which are still ongoing 75 years after the war’s end. Why are the last surviving war victims in Asia and their families still pursuing claims for reparations? Professor Webster will give an overview of the major legal cases, settlement agreements, international treaties, efforts by civil society organizations, and political negotiations to allocate liability for World War II.

Event Recording: China and Authoritarian International Law

International law has mainly been a product of liberal democracies since World War II. But democracy and liberalism are under assault from populists, economic nationalists, and autocrats. Tom Ginsburg, a professor of law and political science, asks what international law might look like if the global trend toward authoritarianism continues. He argues that today’s authoritarian regimes, including China, are using international law to promote their own survival, and may end up reshaping it in important ways.

Event Recording: Celebrating Jerry Cohen & Six Decades of U.S.-Asia Cooperation in Law

The U.S.-Asia Law Institute celebrated its founder and director emeritus, Professor Jerome A. Cohen, and his unique contributions to U.S.-Asia mutual understanding and cooperation in the field of law. 2020 marked Jerry Cohen’s 90th birthday and his official retirement from teaching at NYU – although not his retirement from writing, speaking, advocacy, and devotion to the U.S.-Asia Law Institute.

Newsweek: Don't Rush to Fully Normalize Relations With Taiwan

From Faculty Director Emeritus Jerome A. Cohen: "Trump, by contrast, is playing the China card to "decouple" the U.S. from the PRC. And Xi Jinping's government, while expressing concern about this disturbing trend, refuses, unlike Deng Xiaoping's government of the 1970s, to brook any compromise...Yet none of these disputes, even the South China Sea, has as much explosive potential as contemplated changes in America's relations with Taiwan."

Event Recording: A Discussion of the U.S.-China Technology Relationship & The Politics of Data

In this webinar recorded on May 22, 2020, Samm Sacks, a senior fellow at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center and Cybersecurity Policy Fellow at New America, spoke with Professor Jose Alvarez, USALI’s lead faculty advisor, about the struggle among governments to determine who can access our digital data and how it can be used.

Event Recording: M. Butterfly 2.0: The Evolution of EU-China Relations

In this webinar recorded on May 13, 2020, Theresa Fallon, director of the Centre for Russia Europe Asia Studies, and Peter Dutton, professor at the U.S. Naval War College and USALI senior fellow, discussed how China’s growing economic leverage in Europe and recent “wolf warrior” diplomacy are pushing the European Union and its member states to take geopolitics more seriously and choose a side in the U.S.-China rivalry.

Event Recording: Criminalizing China

In this webinar recorded on April 29, 2020, Seton Hall University Professor Margaret K. Lewis warns that the Department of Justice’s China Initiative is dangerously over-inclusive.