Volume 4, Number 9
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Legal Dialogue, Chinese Style

Legal scholars in China generally refrain from criticizing official policies in public. Qin (Sky) Ma writes that scholars’ response to the feared shutdown of the China Judgments Online (中国裁判文书网) at the end of 2023 was a noteworthy deviation from the norm. It showed that the space for critical discourse, though constrained, is not entirely closed and that strategic engagement by scholars can have impact. 

Volume 4, Number 8
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Feminization of Poverty and Women's Leadership

Poverty is often the face of a woman. Rangita de Silva de Alwis, a member of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, hopes that this year’s meeting of the UN Commission on the Status of Women will help make women the face of anti-poverty solutions.

Volume 3, Number 24
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The Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act: ...

Tamar Groswald Ozery argues that risks to investors may actually be worsened by US enforcement of the Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act, which was enacted in the name of investor protection. Ozery describes the HFCA as part of a geopolitical agenda of decoupling, but says it is backfiring by enhancing the Chinese government’s control over Chinese issuers.

Volume 3, Number 20
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The High Price of Lying in US-China Relations

Following the recent Chinese balloon incident, both Washington and Beijing would do well to recall lessons from a failed CIA espionage mission in China 70 years ago, says Jerome A. Cohen. US refusal to acknowledge the CIA’s role resulted in its own agent, John T. Downey, spending almost 21 years in a Chinese prison. The most obvious lesson: how counterproductive it is for governments to engage in lying.

Volume 3, Number 19
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The Future of CEDAW

Rangita de Silva de Alwis, who joined the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women in January 2023, shares her vision for future development of the jurisprudence of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.

Volume 2

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February 24: A Clarifying Moment for China’s Foreign Policy

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Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24 has abruptly propelled China much further down the path of policy confrontation with the US outside of Asia. Weakening Washington’s global leadership – specifically its sanctioning power and use of alliances to project power around the world – has become a new Chinese core interest.

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Hong Kong’s Rights Reckoning: What We Can Expect from the UN Human Rights Committee

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In July 2022, the UN Human Rights Committee will complete its first formal review of Hong Kong since the National Security Law (NSL) came into force in 2020. The review will be an important test of whether the local government still views the ICCPR as a meaningful constraint on its actions. It also will be a test of the efficacy of the UN human rights treaty-monitoring system.

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A Reputation Tarnished: Reflections on the Resignation of Overseas Judges from Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal

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Hong Kong has been privileged to have a panel of eminent overseas judges to serve as non-permanent judges of its Court of Final Appeal (CFA). The willingness of overseas judges to serve on the CFA was seen as a vote of confidence in the constitutional model of “One Country, Two Systems,” in which a common law legal system and its values were to be preserved within a socialist sovereign. Now two UK judges have resigned, expressly citing the National Security Law as the reason.

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Exonerating Those They Prosecuted: Prosecutorial Reforms in China, the US, and Taiwan

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Traditionally, prosecutors have focused on putting criminals in jail. That narrow focus is now broadening to some extent on both sides of the Pacific as prosecutors in China, Taiwan, and the United States give significant attention to redressing wrongful convictions. The following is a brief comparison of reform efforts in those three jurisdictions.

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Exploring the Social Role of Corporations in Asia-Pacific

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The genesis of this symposium was a straightforward question from a colleague at the U.S.-Asia Law Institute: What is the hottest topic today in corporate governance throughout Asia? To find out, I queried a group of colleagues from six Asia-Pacific countries who previously collaborated with me on a book on corporate governance in the region. The essentially unanimous answer was the social role of corporations, as exemplified by ESG—the environmental, social and governance factors related to a company’s business activities.

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When Judging Meets Development: Foreign Judges on Pacific Courts

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Pacific island states are unusual, but not alone, in relying on foreign judges to sit on their highest courts. This essay focuses on the intersection of foreign judging and overseas development assistance. Does the appointment of foreign judges undermine the very qualities of good governance and the rule of law that development agencies seek to promote?