Chinese universities conduct a nationwide audit of retracted academic papers; Hong Kong courts sentence more defendants in cases stemming from the 2019 protests; LGBTQ activists in Japan advocate for equal marriage rights on Valentine’s Day; South Korea convicts three former police officers for destroying evidence linked to a fatal crowd crush in Seoul on Halloween 2022; Taiwan solicits public input for the next phase of its Open Government National Action Plan.
USALI Faculty Director José E. Alvarez has been elected a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, one of the oldest and most prestigious learned societies in the United States. He is among 252 new members announced on April 22, and one of only five law professors who were chosen.
This 10-session seminar will introduce the legal system of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) – in practice as well as theory – with an emphasis on institutions, norms, procedures, personnel and ideology relating to constitutional law, criminal justice and human rights. We will view the contemporary legal process against the background of China’s legal traditions and pre-Communist efforts to develop a modern legal system. We will also consider the relevant experiences of Chinese societies in Taiwan and Hong Kong.
Pioneering scholar of Chinese law, Professor Jerome Alan Cohen has taught and mentored countless others in a field he helped establish in this country. A courageous voice for those whose voices have been silenced, Professor Cohen defends human rights around the globe. Bold trailblazer and advocate, for using his many talents to create a more just world, Yale is proud to present Professor Jerome Alan Cohen with his third Yale degree, Doctor of Laws.
From USALI Faculty Director Emeritus Jerome A. Cohen: “Here’s a draft of a new article that in a way is my Apologia Pro Vita Sua. There have been some debates about whether those of us who tried to help China build its legal system in the decade beginning in 1979 committed a mistake. I offer my thoughts in the article from a frank, close-up, first-hand perspective. I hope they will be useful for people thinking about our China policy and for anyone interested in recent Chinese history.”
To spread awareness of the problem of wrongful convictions, the Taiwan Innocence Project will be hosting its first “Innocence Film Festival” from December 11 through December 15, 2019 in Taipei, Taiwan, featuring 18 domestic and foreign documentary and fact-based dramas that depict miscarriages of justice in Taiwan, the United States, Japan, Iceland, the Philippines and other countries. See the trailer and poster below. More details will be made public soon.
USALI’s guest speakers from East Asia often inspire reflection on our own legal and judicial debates from new angles. At a special seminar at USALI on November 1, Chief Justice Tzong-Li Hsu and Justice Jau-Yuan Hwang of Taiwan’s Constitutional Court made a case for judicial activism, which has become a mostly pejorative term in the United States. Chief Justice Hsu argued that Taiwan’s Constitutional Court should “serve as mediator for opposing political forces in the process of transition.”
Human rights in China is an important research field that the USALI is actively engaged in. Dr. Yu-Jie Chen, our affiliate scholar and a Global Academic Fellow at Hong Kong University Faculty of Law, has just published an article on “China’s Challenge to the International Human Rights Regime” (NYU Journal of International Law and Politics, vol. 51, no. 4, 2019).
This paper, published by USALI Affiliated Scholar Yu-Jie Chen, is part of the annual report published by Taiwan’s Foundation for Democracy on human rights in China. It gives an overview of the recent trends, particularly in 2018, regarding human rights issues in the contexts of the Chinese police law enforcement, the National Supervisory Commission, the court and lawyers.
From Professor Jerome A. Cohen’s Blog:
I'm delighted to announce the publication of a new edited volume, Taiwan and International Human Rights: A Story of Transformation. I admire the hard work of my co-editors and dear friends, Professors Bill Alford of Harvard and LO Chang-fa, former Taiwan Constitutional Court Justice and National Taiwan University Law Dean, that made this book possible.
Hong Kong has been in the news over the controversy and protests surrounding the Fugitive Offenders and Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Legislation Bill proposed by the Hong Kong government. Our very own Alvin Cheung has been analyzing the situation across a number of platforms.
On May 29, 2019 Elizabeth Lynch interviewed NYU Law Professor Frank Upham in observance of the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre. The interview details how in 1989 Professor Upham was a researcher at Wuhan University faculty of law and as a result witnessed the pro-democracy protests that were also occurring in Wuhan, the capital of China’s Hubei Province. Listen / Read Transcript of the Podcast here.
This week USALI is delighted to welcome our interns for the summer! This internship provides an excellent opportunity for practical and hands-on legal research experience, close mentorship and career advice, the opportunity to development independent research with guidance from USALI staff, and a connection with a community of legal scholars, academics, and professionals committed to understanding the Rule of Law in Asia.
From June 1 – 2, 2019 the U.S.-Asia Law Institute held “International Approaches to Sexual Harassment Law” in partnership with Sichuan University Law School, Chengdu, China. The workshop was structured to explore comparative means of addressing anti-discrimination cases, litigation, mechanisms and standards throughout the world for the purpose of strengthening understanding of international approaches.
In May 2019 “An American Perspective on Capital Punishment in Japan” written by David T. Johnson, Professor of University of Hawaii at Mano’a was published. This volume was edited by Kana Sasakura Professor of Law at Konan University and Wrongful Convictions Program participant.
About the publication:
The death penalty of Aum Shinrinkyo’s Shoko Asahara is one of the most notable instances of capital punishment in Japan. Among modernized countries, Japan and the United States are exceptions for exception amoungst developed countries. This publication provides detailed analysis of the secret execution, the culture of denial in Japanese criminal justice, and the Japanese political society surrounding the death penalty system.
Introduction
Japanese-language reviews and articles:
Academic exchanges between the U.S. and China have blossomed in frequency and scope since relations were normalized in 1978. Now, as relations sour, Chinese scholars and students face suspicions of espionage and spreading propaganda. The U.S. scrutiny is especially intense for Chinese scholars affiliated with state-linked think tanks and research institutions…
USALI Faculty Director Jerome A. Cohen and Affiliated Scholar Aaron Halegua recently published an op-ed in the Washington Post discussing the One Belt - One Road Initiative and the Chinese workers dispatched overseas to help make this building infrastructure through deepening economic ties a reality. Read an excerpt below of the article, and read the entire article here.
On May 29, 2018, the U.S.-Asia Law Institute (USALI) of NYU School of Law held a book launch for the release of their two newest publications, Questioning Police Interrogation Methods: A Comparative Study and The Evolution of Pretrial Detention Law: A Comparative Study. These two books are products of multi-year projects undertaken by USALI, featuring a variety of articles written by leading legal scholars, social scientists and law practitioners from the U.S., the UK and P.R. China about the important and evolving fields of pretrial detention and police interrogation methods.
By Jerome A. Cohen
I gave a talk entitled “Jack Downey, Sino-American Relations and International Law — Lessons for Today" at the Woodrow Wilson Center today in Washington, DC. It was in memory of the late distinguished historian of Sino-American relations Nancy Bernkopf Tucker and reviewed the case of my Yale college classmate Jack Downey, a CIA agent whose plane was shot down in China November 29, 1952.
The Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) is a model of legal ingenuity spurred by political necessity. Jimmy Carter inherited Richard Nixon’s challenge, which was to establish diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Nixon took the first step in February 1972 with his famous trip to Beijing, where he, Henry Kissinger, and China’s leaders concluded the Shanghai Communiqué. The Communiqué gave ambiguous assurance to China about Taiwan.
