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.
Job Opportunity: Communications & Administration Manager
USALI is seeking a Communications & Administration Manager for an amazing opportunity to partner with the Executive Director in developing and executing a comprehensive communications strategy. The manager will maintain USALI social media accounts, expand USALI’s presence on social media platforms, enhance its website and external communications, coordinate online programs, promote activities across multiple platforms, and provide other critical administrative support to a small institute in a large university that is on the frontlines of US-Asia relations.
This Week in Asian Law
This week’s highlights include: China implements comprehensive revisions to its Administrative Penalties Law; Hong Kong police will be empowered to make arrests without warrants under a proposed new anti-doxxing law; Japanese prosecutors drop charges against 100 accused bribe recipients in a case involving the former justice minister; South Korea defends its Anti-Leafleting Law; Taiwan’s National Human Rights Commission releases its first report.
This Week in Asian Law
This week’s highlights include: Shenzhen promulgates China’s first comprehensive local-level data protection regulation; Hong Kong police arrest nine in alleged bomb plot; Japan’s #MeToo icon, journalist Shiori Ito, wins a defamation case against a former professor; South Korea’s government promises legal action against trade unionists who rallied for better work conditions despite pandemic restrictions; Taiwan lawmakers block efforts to allow absentee voting in referendums.
This Week in Asian Law
This week’s highlights include: China’s updated provisional sentencing guidelines take effect; a domestic worker in Hong Kong challenges the city’s response to human trafficking; France names a Japanese law professor a Knight of the French National Order of Merit; South Korea carries out a major reorganization of its police system; Taiwan legislators call for an absentee voting law.
This Week in Asian Law
This week’s highlights include: Shanghai’s Pudong New Area gains special legislative powers; a Hong Kong court opens the first trial under the National Security Law; Japan’s Supreme Court says that requiring married couples to register the same surname is constitutional; a South Korean court schedules a hearing date for the comfort women’s appeal; Taiwan denies that data from a COVID contact-tracing SMS service is being used in criminal investigations.
Are countries fulfilling the promise of the Violence and Harassment Convention?
This Week in Asian Law
This week’s highlights include: China’s Supreme People’s Court issues Online Litigation Rules; Hong Kong police arrest five senior executives of a leading newspaper; two Americans plead guilty in Japan to helping Carlos Ghosn flee prosecution; South Korea’s governing party seeks to impose punitive damages for disinformation and misinformation; Taiwan tries to attract foreign professionals with tax breaks and other incentives.
Jerome A. Cohen receives lifetime achievement award from AFLA
The American Foreign Law Association (AFLA) gave its 2021 Lifetime Achievement Award in International Law to Jerome A. Cohen, founding director emeritus of the U.S.-Asia Law Institute.
The association presented the award on June 16 at its annual meeting. Its announcement said the honor recognized Professor Cohen’s “decades of major contributions to a better understanding of Trans-Pacific, international, and human rights law.”
Professor Cohen pioneered research and teaching about China’s contemporary legal system in American law schools in the 1960s. He taught at Harvard Law School from 1964 to 1979 and at New York University Law School beginning in 1990. He also is Of Counsel at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, where he long represented foreign companies in contract negotiations and dispute resolution in China, Vietnam, and other countries in East Asia. Professor Cohen served for several years as C.V. Starr Senior Fellow and director of Asia Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he currently is an adjunct senior fellow.
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 Recording: Investment Treaty Reform in Asia: Rule Makers, Takers or Breakers?
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
This Week in Asian Law
This week’s highlights include: China passes an Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law; Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal will decide if the joint enterprise principle may be used to prosecute persons not present at a riot or unlawful assembly; a Japanese woman in a same-sex relationship sues to obtain spousal benefits; a South Korean court dismisses a lawsuit against Japanese companies over wartime forced labor; a Taiwanese student brings a claim against Norway at the European Court of Human Rights after Norway registered him as Chinese.
This Week in Asian Law
This week’s highlights include: laws mandating child safety seats, blocking software on computers used by children, and other protective measures take effect in China; Hong Kong police seal off Victoria Park to block an annual vigil for those killed in China on June 3-4, 1989; Japan’s Diet moves to do away with imprisonment with hard labor; South Korea appoints a new prosecutor-general; Taiwan formally decriminalizes adultery.
East Asia Forum: Towards marriage equality in Japan
This Week in Asian Law
This week’s highlights include: China publishes the 2021 report on Rule of Law development; Hong Kong police ban a vigil commemorating the victims of June 4, 1989; the Tokyo High Court allows restrictions on a transgender official’s choice of restroom; the governor of Jeju Province discloses his cryptocurrency holdings; Taiwan’s Constitutional Court upholds a mandatory prison term for sellers of copyrighted DVDs.
This Week in Asian Law
This week’s highlights include: China tightens restrictions on private schools and requires them to pursue public welfare, not profit; an ordinance takes effect requiring Hong Kong public officers to take an oath to uphold the Basic Law; the Japanese government drops its plan to revise the immigration law after a Sri Lankan woman died in an immigration detention facility; the South Korean government considers allowing more foreigners to work as domestic workers; Taiwan’s president issues her first pardon to an indigenous Bunun man controversially convicted of weapons and poaching offenses.
USALI Co-hosts U.S.-China Legal Aid Dialogue
China’s legislature is expected to approve the country’s first Legal Aid Law later this year. The current draft, which has passed its first reading, could expand the pool of criminal defendants eligible for legal aid – and increase demand for lawyers. Below are links to transcripts of presentations that four Chinese legal experts made at the U.S.-China Legal Aid Dialogue co-hosted by the U.S.-Asia Law Institute at NYU and the National Institute of Legal Aid at the China University of Political Science and Law in April 2021. The transcripts were originally published in the journal Renmin Fazhi or People’s Rule of Law.
This Week in Asian Law
This week’s highlights include: China proposes to tighten automobile data security; the Hong Kong government proposes to criminalize doxing; Japan’s amendment to its referendum law advances in the Diet; the South Korean government is criticized for asking Google to take down far more content than other governments; Taiwan’s Control Yuan urges action to curb human rights abuses on fishing vessels flying the Taiwan flag.