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.

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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?