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.”
In accordance with NYU policy concerning COVID-19 health precautions, the U.S.-Asia Law Institute is canceling or postponing our normally scheduled Asia Law Weekly lunch talks, visiting scholar presentations and other public activities through March 27th. We will announce the status of programs scheduled for later dates as the situation evolves. We appreciate your understanding.
BJNews (Reporter: Wang Jun) Unnecessary detention has long been a problem in judicial practice in China. Zhang Jun, the Chief Prosecutor of the People’s Procuratorate (the SPP), during an address to the national chief prosecutors conference today (January 18, 2020), said that the rates of arrest and pretrial detention must be further decreased, and that it is imperative to expand implementation of non-incarceration measures.
Every summer, USALI seeks several interns from NYU Law School and other law schools to join our vibrant community and support the legal research of the Institute. We look for candidates who have excellent research and writing ability, demonstrated capacity to contribute to team projects, the ability to work independently, and with a genuine interest in the legal, social, and political challenges of Asia. We also welcome candidates with language ability in any of Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, or Korean to apply.
Bruce Aronson, affiliated scholar at the U.S.-Asia Law Institute of New York University School of Law, talks about Carlos Ghosn's attack against Japan’s criminal justice system. “I was brutally taken from my world as I knew it,” the former head of Nissan Motor Co. and Renault SA said in Beirut. Aronson, who is an outside director of Japanese Japanese pharmaceutical company Eisai Co. and has been tenured professor of law at universities in the U.S. and Japan, speaks on "Bloomberg Daybreak: Australia."
Further reading: The Diplomat: Is Nissan a Japanese Company? by Affiliated Scholar Bruce Aronson.
Original interview on Bloomberg.
Wrongful convictions occur in every jurisdiction, and legal professionals around the world should collaborate to redress and prevent them. That was the message of ‘Exonerated! From Central Park to East Asia,’ a speaker event held at the law school on Tuesday, October 8, 2019 by the U.S.-Asia Law Institute (USALI) and co-sponsored by the Center on the Administration of Criminal Law and Asia Law Society.
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.
On November 4, the ASEAN chair’s gavel was passed to Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc of Vietnam at the closing ceremony of the grouping’s annual summit in Bangkok. Vietnam will serve as the chair of ASEAN, the most important international organization in Southeast Asia, through 2020.
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.
The U.S-Asia Law Institute (USALI) is currently accepting applications for its annual Student Scholars program, an exciting year-long opportunity to produce independent research related to the Institute’s ongoing projects.
The selection process is competitive, and successful student scholars will meet regularly as a group to discuss important legal issues facing the region, meet with the Institute’s world-renowned visiting scholars and receive guidance and support from USALI staff. Students are expected to commit time to the Institute each week and contribute to the work of the Institute.
