U.S.-Asia Law Institute Adjunct Faculty Advisor Peter A. Dutton wrote a review for Foreign Policy of China’s Law of the Sea: The New Rules of Maritime Order, by Isaac B. Kardon (Yale University Press, March 2023).
This Week in Asian Law
China releases draft rules to restrict mobile phone file sharing; Hong Kong’s highest court overturns the conviction of an investigative journalist who accessed auto license plate information through a public database; another Japanese district court criticizes the law’s failure to recognize same-sex marriages; South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission will investigate 237 more international adoption cases from the past; Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen apologizes twice in a week over sexual harassment allegations involving prominent members of her Democratic Progressive Party.
This Week in Asian Law
The CEDAW Committee expresses concern about harassment of women human rights defenders in China; Hong Kong’s Court of First Instance says Jimmy Lai can and will get a fair trial; the lower house of Japan’s legislature approves major revisions to the Penal Code for sexual offenses; the South Korean legislature fails to override a presidential veto of the controversial Nursing Act; Taiwan’s president nominates four candidates to fill upcoming vacancies on the Constitutional Court.
This Week in Asian Law
China’s Coast Guard Bureau issues procedural rules for handling criminal cases; a Hong Kong resident seeks judicial review of the city’s new real-name registration requirement for mobile phone SIM cards; Japan’s Supreme Court takes responsibility for lower courts discarding important trial records; South Korean lawmakers require themselves and high-ranking officials to report any crypto holdings; the World Health Organization decides not to invite Taiwan to attend the annual World Health Assembly in Geneva.
This Week in Asian Law
A well-known Beijing LGBT organization is closed after 15 years; the Hong Kong Court of First Instance says it lacks jurisdiction to review the government’s denial of a visa to publisher Jimmy Lai’s UK lawyer; Japan’s ruling party submits a weakened LGBTQ+ rights bill to the legislature; a South Korean court orders the country’s biggest adoption agency to compensate an adoptee for mishandling his case; Taiwan allows same-sex couples to adopt children not biologically related to them.
This Week in Asian Law
China arrests a ChatGPT user for generating and spreading fake news about a nonexistent train crash; Hong Kong gives the chief executive the power to veto the admission of foreign attorneys in national security cases; Japan’s lower house approves a bill allowing immigration authorities to deport failed asylum seekers; South Korean police seek to charge suspects in a massive rental fraud scheme with organizing a criminal group; Taiwan upgrades its Environmental Protection Administration to ministry status.
This Week in Asian Law
A rights group claims that China is increasing its use of exit bans; Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal hears arguments in a press freedom case; the Japanese government submits legislation to punish persons who surreptitiously take sexually exploitative photos; South Korea resumes a crackdown on illegal immigration; Taiwan restricts China-bound travel by persons who work with state-funded core technologies.
This Week in Asian Law
China expands the reach of its counter-espionage law; Jimmy Lai continues his legal fight to be represented in court by a British barrister; Japan prepares to lift COVID-19 vaccination requirement for anyone entering the country; Korean prosecutors charge Daniel Shin, a co-founder of Terraform Labs, in connection with the collapse of his firm’s TerraUSD and Luna crypto currencies; a Taiwan-based publisher is detained in China on suspicion of endangering national security.
USALI Faculty Director José E. Alvarez publishs a new article on WHO's Human Rights Rhetoric
U.S.-Asia Law Institute Faculty Director José E. Alvarez published a new article, The WHO’s Mixed Human Rights Messages, in the latest issue of the Yearbook of International Disaster Law
USALI Faculty Director José E. Alvarez reviews Tzouvala’s Capitalism as Civilization in ASIL
U.S.-Asia Law Institute Faculty Director José E. Alvarez recently wrote a review of Tzouvala’s Capitalism as Civilization in the latest issue of the American Journal of International Law.
This Week in Asian Law
US federal prosecutors charge two men in connection with an alleged Chinese police outpost in New York City; Hong Kong’s Justice Department seeks the ability to appeal acquittals in national security cases; a court orders the Japanese government to pay damage to a Kurdish man for excessive use of force by immigration detention center staff; South Korea’s government seeks to help the victims of home rental scams recover their security deposits; Taiwan debates giving more functions to its Interior Ministry.
This Week in Asian Law
A Chinese court sentences to two prominent human rights lawyers to lengthy prison terms; Japan’s legislature advances a bill that would allow courts to order GPS monitoring of suspects released on bail; the South Korean Supreme Court rules that Google must disclose whether it shared personal information of South Korean nationals with third parties; Taiwan’s Ministry of Justice proposes to revise the Civil Code to ban corporal punishment of children by their parents.
This Week in Asian Law
A Chinese court sentences six defendants in a high-profile human trafficking case; a former democratic politician tells a Hong Kong court that legal scholar Benny Tai’s 2020 election plan could have led to a catastrophe; a Tokyo court orders Waseda University and its former professor to pay damages to a former student for sexual harassment; a South Korean court approves the seizure of four more Mitsubishi patent rights to compensation the victims of forced labor in World War II; lawyers in Taiwan seek the release of a man who has been held on death row for 35 years.
This Week in Asian Law
China’s Foreign Ministry confirmed that authorities have detained a Japanese businessman on suspicion of espionage; the UN Human Rights Office urges Hong Kong to release lawyer Albert Ho on bail due to his poor health; LGBTQ activists urge Japan to enact an anti-discrimination law before hosting the G-7 summit in May; South Korean prosecutors arrest a former military commander for allegedly planning to declare martial law and suppress protests in 2017; Taiwan takes steps to make corporal punishment by parents illegal.
This Week in Asian Law
China’s Communist Party launches a political campaign aimed at weeding out disloyal or corrupt cadres in the party-state’s anti-corruption organs; Hong Kong’s national security police question four former members of the now-disbanded Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions; two senior politicians in Japan’s ruling party call for reforming the child custody rules so that divorced parents are not driven to abduct their children from each other; South Korea’s Constitutional Court upholds legislation that significantly reduced prosecutors’ investigatory powers; Taiwan’s Constitutional Court orders the legislature to more narrowly tailor a law that says a party at fault cannot file for divorce.
This Week in Asian Law
China’s National People’s Congress amends the Law on Legislation to allow streamlined lawmaking in emergencies; Jimmy Lai’s son and legal team urge the UN Human Rights Council to condemn his prosecution; a Japanese court orders the government to give refugee status to a woman who fled LGBT persecution in Uganda; South Korea’s president pauses plans to lengthen the work week; a Taiwanese business leader launches the Taiwan Civil Liberties Union to promote judicial reform.
This Week in Asian Law
China’s National People’s Congress confirms Xi Jinping’s third five-year term as president during its annual plenary meeting; a planned women’s rights march in Hong Kong is called off and police warn activists not to assemble; Japan’s Supreme Court rules that the country’s personal ID number system is constitutional; South Korea’s government proposes to lengthen the legal workweek to 69 hours from the current 52; Taiwan’s Supreme Administrative Court upholds a fine against China Airlines following a foiled attempt by airline employees to smuggle cigarettes on a plane chartered by President Tsai Ing-wen.
USALI Faculty Director Emeritus Jerome A. Cohen nominated for the Presidential Medal of Freedom
This Week in Asian Law
The Chinese Central Committee approves a Party and State Institutional Reform Plan in advance of the annual plenary meeting of the National People’s Congress; Hong Kong ends its COVID mask mandate; the Osaka High Court reopens the criminal conviction of a dead man; South Korea’s Constitutional Court upholds a requirement that men born abroad to Korean parents cannot renounce their Korean citizenship until after performing compulsory military service; Taiwan’s national defense ministry withdraws proposed revisions to the General Mobilization Act following widespread criticism.
This Week in Asian Law
China has a new minister of justice; Hong Kong’s Department of Justice proposes to require chief executive approval for a foreign lawyer to represent a client in cases related to national security; a Japanese court awards compensation to a woman forcibly sterilized in 1970; a South Korean court says same-sex couples are entitled to spousal coverage in the National Health Insurance Service; a court in Taiwan says mainland Chinese nationals are treated as Republic of China citizens when seeking state compensation for wrongful death and injury.