Volume 4, Number 9
K W
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
K W
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
K W
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
K W
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
K W
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.

South Korea

,

South Korea's Presidential Impeachment Decision Is Worth Reading

,

The deepening polarization in South Korean politics triggered a constitutional crisis last December when President Yoon Seok-yeol declared martial law out of frustration with the opposition-controlled National Assembly. Eungi Hong writes that when the South Korean Constitutional Court upheld President Yoon’s impeachment, it sought to bridge the deep political divides and remind all citizens in clear, accessible language what it means to have a democracy. She also provides an unofficial English translation of the full court decision.

,

South Korea’s President on Trial: An Explainer

,

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol’s unexpected and short-lived declaration of martial law on December 3, 2024 presented severe challenges to the nation’s legal and political systems. Eungi Hong writes that the responses of other institutions, especially the courts, may serve as a testament to the resilience of South Korea’s Constitution and democracy.

,

Young Climate Activists Win Big in South Korea

,

Last August, a group of youthful plaintiffs in South Korea unexpectedly won their lawsuit charging that the government’s official greenhouse gas reduction targets were unconstitutionally inadequate. It was the first victory outside Europe against a national climate target. Sejong Youn, the plaintiffs’ lawyer, writes that more wins may follow, as youths in Japan and Taiwan also have sued their respective governments this year. He says that courts are increasingly stepping forward to protect a vulnerable minority - future generations - from discrimination by an indifferent majority.