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By Elizabeth M. Lynch, March 9, 2010

Prof. Jerome A. Cohen - Photo by George Washington Law School

On February 19, 2010, George Washington School of Law and Georgetown University Law Center hosted an academic conference in honor of noted Chinese legal scholar Prof. Jerome A. Cohen.  Consisting of four separate panel discussions on current legal issues in China, the afternoon conference, and it’s participants (all of whom were students of Prof. Cohen’s) was a testament to the continued importance of Prof. Cohen’s work in the field.

Panel 1 – Google & Freedom of Online Information
(7:20 start) Rebecca MacKinnon, Visiting Fellow, Center for Information Tech. Policy, Princeton
(19:35 start) Lawrence Liu, Senior Counsel, Congressional-Executive Commission on China
(28:49 start) Sharon Hom, Executive Director, Human Rights in China
Click here for video of this panel.

Panel 2 – Business Law
(1:43 start)Donald Clarke, Professor of Law, George Washington University Law School
(10:25 start) Nicholas C. Howson, Assistant Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School
(19:22start) James Feinerman, Co-Director/Prof. of Law, Law-Asia Leadership, Georgetown Law
Click here for video of this panel.

Panel 3 – Human Rights, Civil Society & Criminal Law
(1:07 start) Xiaorong Li, Research Scholar, School of Public Policy, University of Maryland
(9:18 start)Karla Simon, Professor of Law, Columbus School of Law, Catholic University of America
(21:25 start)Eva Pils, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
(33:38 start) Scot Tanner, China Security Analyst, The CNA Corporation
Click here for video of this panel.

Panel 4 – International Law
(1:32 start) Julia Qin, Associate Professor of Law, Wayne State University Law School
(10:35 start) Michael Schlesinger, Of Counsel, Greenberg Traurig, LLP
(20:00 start) Timothy Stratford, Former Assistant U.S. Trade Rep. for China Affairs, USTR
(28:15 start) Alex Wang, Senior Attorney & Director, China Environmental Law Project, NRDC
Click here for video of this panel.

CLOSING REMARKS BY PROF. JEROME COHEN – Click Here

Thank you to Prof. Don Clarke of George Washington School of Law for making the videos of the conference available.

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By Elizabeth M. Lynch, February 16, 2010

February 19, 2010 from 1:30 pm – 6 pm; George Washington School of Law

Prof. Jerome A. Cohen

Free & Open to the Public
Click here for the event’s flier

The name Jerome A. Cohen is synonymous with the study of Chinese law in the U.S.  Why?  Because the man basically created the field.  Prof. Cohen started studying Chinese law in 1960, while mainland China was in the throes of the Cultural Revolution and no foreigners were allowed in.  Instead of giving up, Prof. Cohen went to Hong Kong and interviewed refugees as they fled the Mainland.  Through his interviews, he was able to gather information on the criminal law under the Communists.  To this day, “The Criminal Process of the People’s Republic of China: 1949-1963” is the only holistic examination of the Chinese criminal law in early Chinese communist history.

In returning to the U.S. and joining the faculty of Harvard Law School, Prof. Cohen founded the first East Asian legal studies program, inviting many Chinese students who would later become important legal reformers including the current President of Taiwan, the former Vice President of Taiwan, the Chief Justice of Taiwan’s highest court, and former dean of Tsinghua University Law School.  After China opened in 1979, Prof. Cohen joined Coudert Brothers and opened the first foreign law office in Beijing.

But Prof. Cohen’s career is more than just writing books and opening offices.  As a pioneer in the field, Prof. Cohen has taught the second, third, and now fourth generation of Chinese legal scholars and has made the field what it is today.  And this year, Prof. Cohen turns…..well, he turns an age where it is respectable to host a conference in his honor so the world can celebrate his achievements.

This Friday, George Washington School of Law and Georgetown Law present a conference in Prof. Cohen’s honor.  Discussing four fields of law that are undergoing significant change in China, the conference will feature powerhouses in the field, many of which are former students and colleagues of Prof. Cohen’s.  Below is the schedule of events.  This event is free and open to the public.  RSVPs are not required but would be appreciated.  Please email jacfestrsvp@gmail.com

****Prof. Cohen will be in attendance*****

Schedule:

Panel 1 – Google & Freedom of Online Information – 1:45 pm
Sharon Hom, Executive Director, Human Rights in China
Lawrence Liu, Senior Counsel, Congressional Executive Commission on China
Amy Porges, International Attorney, Law Offices of Amelia Porges PLLC
Susan Weld, Adjunct Prof. of Law, Georgetown Law

Panel 2 – Business Law – 2:45 pm
Donald Clarke, Prof. of Law, George Washington School of Law
James Feinerman, Prof. of Law, Georgetown Law
Nicholas C. Howson, Assistant Prof. of Law, University of Michigan Law School

Panel 3 – Human Rights, Civil Society & Criminal Law – 4:00 pm
Xiaorong Li, Research Scholar, School of Public Policy, University of Maryland
Eva Pils, Associate Prof., Faculty of Law, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Karla Simon, Prof. of Law, Columbus School of Law, Catholic University of America
Scot Tanner, China Security Analyst, The CNA Corporation

Panel 4 – International Law – 5:00 pm
Julia Qin, Associate Prof. of Law, Wayne State University Law School
Michael Schlesinger, Attorney, International Intellectual Property Alliance
Timothy Stratford, Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for China Affairs, USTR
Alex Wang, Senior Attorney & Dir., China Environmental Law Project, NRDC

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By Elizabeth M. Lynch, October 19, 2009

Many Western China observers were dismayed by this past summer’s arrests and harassment of Chinese public interest lawyers; for many, such a crackdown evidenced a step back in creating an independent legal system.  Cheng Li and Jordan Lee of the Brookings Institution offer a different interpretation.  In their recent work, “China’s Legal System,” Li and Lee maintain that while the arrest and detention of rights lawyers like Xu Zhiyong was certainly a disappointment, China’s recent progress with legal reform overshadows this past summer’s events.  But even though Li and Lee are correct to note some of the positive developments, especially with the growth of the legal profession in China, they perhaps put too much weight on these developments at the expense of recent obstacles.

Li and Lee offer four developments that they claim bode well for legal development in China: (1) an increasing body of law, with new laws being written and old ones amended; (2) the astronomical growth in the number of lawyers; (3) increasing economic autonomy and a greater sense of professionalism in the legal profession; and (4) the rapidly rising number of legally-trained government officials.

Li and Lee cite the huge number of laws that China currently has on the books (231 individual laws, 600 administrative regulations, 7,000 local rules and regulations, and a sizable number of departmental regulations), but only pay passing attention to China’s difficulty in implementing laws on the local level, arguably the most important aspect of a functioning legal system.  To be sure, drafting laws is the first step; but without meaningful and consistent implementation, the value of such a large body of law is questionable.

Additionally, Li and Lee look to the increased professionalization of the legal profession as a positive sign.  It is true that the Chinese bar has become more professionalized and lawyers are no longer employees of the State as they were in the 1950s.  But Li and Lee make no mention of the fact that the All China Lawyers Association and local bar associations are government-controlled and answer to the Ministry of Justice (MOJ).  Prof. Jerome Cohen of NYU’s U.S.-Asia Law Institute has consistently commented on this lack of independence of the Chinese bar and has noted the role that the MOJ has played in influencing bar associations to punish rights lawyers that go a bit too far for the government’s taste.

Finally, Li and Lee are correct to note that there has been an increase in the number of legally trained government officials rising through the ranks.  Most officials in the current leadership have a science background, with very few with a background in law or even the social sciences.  In the next generation of officials, currently being groomed for powerful positions in the Party and the government, a majority have a background in the social sciences.  But only one, Li Keqing, has a background in law.  Thus, a shift toward leaders with legal training is not as apparent as Li and Lee contend.  Furthermore, such a shift is not reflected in the positions in the Chinese government that one would think necessitate legal training.  Hu Jintao’s recent appointments to the MOJ and the Central Party Political-Legal Committee (the committee responsible for all legal institutions) all lack legal training; instead, many have training in the police force providing for a more militant view of justice.  Even the new president of the Supreme People’s Court, Wang Shengjun, has no formal legal training.

China’s legal development has come a long way since the era of Mao, when law was merely a tool for class struggle and lawyers were often harshly persecuted.  But using the Cultural Revolution as a baseline will only impede China’s progress; arguably, everything is better now than it was during the Cultural Revolution.  China has made progress, but its progress should not be overstated and its limitations need to be noted in order to move forward.