Chinese Law Prof Blog

Moving my blog site

Dear readers,

Time to put The China Collection in your blog reader.

After twelve years (I started in May 2005) and almost a million visits here at the Chinese Law Prof Blog, I'm making some major changes in my blogging.

• I'm changing the blog name.
• I'm changing the URL.
• I'm changing the platform.
• I'll have several co-bloggers.

Why? Basically, I wanted (a) to have more hands-on control over the blog's format and various bells and whistles, and (b) to get some co-bloggers with me so that the blog itself could feature more frequent posts on a wider variety of subjects, including not just law but also politics, economics, and finance. My co-bloggers at the moment are (or will be, to be more exact) Nicholas Howson (Michigan), Carl Minzner (Fordham), and Barry Naughton (UC San Diego). For more information, check out my first post.

To summarize: No more blogging at this address. From now on, it's all at www.thechinacollection.org. I'm grateful to Paul Caron for setting up this blog network many years ago and providing a very easy on-ramp to blogging for many of us.

Hong Kong's Big Four weigh in on Occupy Central

The Chinese government and its allies in Hong Kong’s business elite seem to be in full panic mode over the Occupy Central movement (which, let us recall, has not yet occupied so much as a garden shed). First came the PRC government’s stern warning earlier this month in the form of a White Paper reminding Hong Kong who was boss. Presumably emboldened by this, the accountants decided that their input would be valued by the public. Yes, the accountants: the Big 4 in Hong Kong (Ernst & Young, KPMG, Deloitte, and PricewaterhouseCoopers) published a joint statement last Friday in three Chinese-language newspapers [Chinese | English (scroll down)] announcing their opposition to the Occupy Central movement.

Overall, I don’t have much to add to Paul Gillis’s blog post:

The arrogance of the firms is stunning. Did they really think their voice would alter the debate? Do they really think people respect their opinions that much? Did they not see that all they were doing is setting themselves up for ridicule while diminishing their brand worldwide?

Paul also adds some thoughts about whether, if they did this at the behest of certain big clients, they have therefore compromised their independence under IAS (International Accounting Standards).

I wonder a bit if the statement was drafted by someone with PRC connections. To be fair, it doesn’t read exactly like PRC Chinese; there are many places where it uses words and expressions not common in PRC officialese. (For example, it says 各式各样 instead of the more common 各种各样, and 进行著 instead of 进行着.) But in the signature line it names Deloitte Hong Kong as德勤.關黃陳方會計師事務所 instead of using Deloitte Hong Kong’s official name, 德勤.關黃陳方會計師行. For those who don’t read Chinese, it used the common mainland term for “accounting firm” (kuaijishi shiwusuo) instead of a different term that Deloitte Hong Kong actually uses (kuaijishi hang). If you check out this page, you can see that Deloitte uses “kuaijishi hang” for its Hong Kong entity and “kuaijishi shiwusuo” for its mainland PRC entity. (Thanks to sharp-eyed commenter “percysmith” on Paul Gillis’s blog, who spotted the misnaming.)

Not surprisingly, “[w]hen the Financial Times approached the big four’s global headquarters for comment, it emerged that they had only learned of the advertisement through press reports.” The various local entities sporting the names of the Big 4 are typically not properly characterized as “branches”; they are more like franchises that bear a common name and may have some level of cooperation, but they don’t have common ownership. The Big 4 in Hong Kong could have issued this statement without the knowledge or approval of any other Big 4 offices anywhere in the world.

Attention US government officials with a Chinese law interest

Mark Cohen is looking for you! Mark is a Chinese IP law expert now (back) at the US PTO, and recently circulated the following message on the Chinalaw list. With his permission I'm re-posting it here. I hope all in his target audience will respond; it would be great to have a list of such people available (but in responsible hands, of course).

If your work in the US government involves Chinese law and you are interested in meeting colleagues and exchanging experiences and updates, please contact me at my official address: [email protected].
 
Knowledge of Chinese is not required.  My sense is that there is an expanding community of us, and that it would be useful to exchange views on common concerns.
 
I am personally particularly interested in getting to know people who are involved in areas such as public international law, securities regulation, environmental protection, labor standards, law enforcement, human rights, etc. (in addition to the trade and IP community I know), that need to look at Chinese legal matters and would benefit from getting involved in a larger community of people.
 
If you work on the Hill, or you are a judge or judicial official, and you are interested in Chinese law, please give me your name as well. 
 
We will probably meet informally at some point after I have collected all the names - either virtually or perhaps a lunch or dinner.

International Environmental Moot Court Competition - East Asia Regional Round

I've been asked to post the following announcement:

The Int'l Environmental Moot Court Competition has long welcomed teams from China and East Asia, but in previous years, teams from East Asia had no local regional rounds to practice their skills prior to flying to Florida. In a partnership between Stetson University's and Soongsil University's Colleges of Law, there will be an East Asia Regional Round (EARR) held in Seoul, South Korea this year. 

The EARR will be an all-English language moot contest held on November 19 - 23, 2013. The most successful teams at the EARR will be promoted to the International Finals at Stetson University to be held in April 2014. The EARR is designed to support teams from China, including Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan, as well as teams from Japan, South Korea, Mongolia, and other countries nearby who would like to participate in English-language moot competition. 

The full set of competition materials are posted on Stetson's IEMCC website: http://www.law.stetson.edu/international/iemcc/

Any teams wishing to compete may should contact Roy Andrew Partain with their registration questions: [email protected]

Call for Submissions: Fordham International Law Journal, Asia-Pacific Issue

My friend and colleague Carl Minzner has asked me to post the following announcement. He adds, "In an unsolicited advertisement on their behalf, I will say that I had a very good experience working with them in publishing my recent article on Chinese legal education, and they were quite capable of handling all of my Chinese-language footnotes."

Call for Submissions: Fordham International Law Journal, Asia-Pacific Issue

In the 2013-2014 academic year, the Fordham International Law Journal will publish its first issue devoted exclusively to legal and policy topics related to the Asia-Pacific region. Similar to the Journal’s annual European Union issue, in which many distinguished scholars, practitioners, and officials have been published, the annual Asia-Pacific issue aims to be a preeminent resource for legal and policy scholarship on the Asia-Pacific region. The Fordham International Law Journal has consistently published a diverse array of notable authors, including Madeleine Albright, Kofi Annan, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, and Philippe Kirsch, and is seeking to provide support and opportunity for authors focusing on this critical region.

The Journal thus invites all scholars, commentators, practitioners, and officials interested in being published in the Journal’s first annual Asia-Pacific issue to submit relevant articles, essays, comments, notes, or reviews for consideration. If selected for publication, submissions will be edited by the Journal’s staff and Editorial Board throughout the summer and fall, with publication planned for the spring.
 
Submission Guidelines

Draft submissions should be emailed as Word document attachments to [email protected], along with the author’s curriculum vitae (CV) and “Fordham ILJ Asia-Pacific Issue Submission” written in the subject line. Generally, submissions should range between 5,000 and 25,000 words (approximately 10 to 50 pages), though the Journal recognizes that different topics demand various lengths and will not reject submissions solely because they fall above or below this range. To the extent possible, footnotes should follow standard Bluebook formatting rules.

Submissions will be reviewed on a rolling basis, though should be sent as soon as possible for best consideration. All submissions will be reviewed by the Journal’s Executive Board, which will consider, among other things, the quality of the writing, the timeliness of the topic, and the importance of the issue.

 

Where Gu Kailai will likely spend her time: China's Club Fed

Here's a profile of Qincheng (秦城) Prison, where high-ranking prisoners stay and where the cognoscenti figure Gu Kailai will go (assuming she's not spirited off to a nice tropical island somewhere).

Ricci dictionary of Chinese law (French/English/Chinese) seeks English proofreaders

Here's a communication I recently received on what sounds like a worthy project:

The Ricci Dictionary of Chinese Law is a trilingual Chinese law dictionary project (Chinese to English / Chinese to French) which is currently ran by a team of practicing and academic lawyers with various legal backgrounds. It is part of a wider dictionary project, the “Grand Ricci” which is the reference Chinese to French dictionary and one of the world’s most complete Chinese to foreign language dictionaries (approx. 13,500 Chinese characters and more than 300,000 terms).

Our project started six years ago and recently reached an advanced stage with more than 23,000 Chinese legal terms listed and translated in both English and French.We are looking for native English speakers to proofread the English translations for these entries. Proofreading will be carried using an online editing tool (web database). Candidates must ideally possess or be in the process of completing a law degree and should be familiar with Chinese legal terms. Ability to read French would be a must. Compensation is to be discussed and will depend on the availability of the candidate.

If you are interested, please submit your resume to Hubert BAZIN, project coordinator (hubert.bazin (at) gmail.com).

Hot spots of labor unrest in China

Here's the chart (HT: China Law Blog).

China-EU Law Journal: Call for papers

I have received this call for papers from the China-EU Law Journal. The accompanying email states:

The China-EU Law Journal is a peer-reviewed journal. It is published by Springer under the auspices of the China-EU Law School at the China University of Political Science and Law.

 For manuscript submission and more information you may visit www.editorialmanager.com/celj

Blogging hiatus

Apologies for the recent hiatus in blog posts. I've been quite busy working on a paper. I have neither forgotten nor given up on this blog, however. Please stay tuned.

Legal knowledge in propaganda posters

The Dutch sinologist Prof. Stefan Landsberger has amassed a huge collection of Chinese propaganda posters. Check out the law-related material here. Particularly quaint is the picture of the upright official turning down a bribe of two bottles of liquor and some cigarettes. Nowadays even the official's amah would be insulted at such a pathetic bribe.

Chinese legal history quotation of the week

As for the "ling-ch'ih," otherwise called the "slow and painful," or "slicing process," my friend said it was "really not so bad as people thought ...."

Sir Henry Evan Murchison James, The Long White Mountain: A Journey in Manchuria (1888), p. 158.

I've been asked to post the following announcement.

New Master of European and International Law in China at the China-EU School of Law in Beijing

(Click here for brochure)

-Law students with international ambitions and an interest in China can now pursue their law studies through a Master of European and International Law (LL.M.) at the newly established China-EU School of Law (CESL) in Beijing. 

The one-year Master Programme taught in English not only covers a broad spectrum of European and international law, but also includes a comprehensive introduction to Chinese law.

Interested students can apply for the 2010/2011 Programme through the CESL website by April 20th.

In the past 30 years China has become the world’s third largest economy with most global companies operating on the Chinese market. At the same time the Chinese legal system is in a state of ongoing reform and rapid development. As a consequence, the demand for legal professionals who combine a high command of European and international law with a special expertise in Chinese legal matters is rising.

-The Master Programme in European and International Law at the China-EU School of Law offers the unique opportunity to acquire this highly sought-after legal expertise – within a very international and challenging environment. The unique feature of the law school is the international faculty from 15 renowned partner universities from Europe and China. All professors are prominent experts in their specialised area of expertise.

-Chinese law courses are mainly taught by professors from one of the top law universities in China, the China University of Political Science and Law (CUPL).

-The China-EU School of Law, a joint project of the Chinese Government and the European Union, is located in the north of Beijing.

-The tuition fee for one year amounts to 60.000 RMB (about 6.000 EUR) for the whole programme. Various scholarships are available.

-Students interested in attending the 2010/2011 Master Programme can find more information as well as online application forms on the CESL website: www.cesl.edu.cn.

Chinese law on the iPhone

Not, regrettably, this blog, but the China Law Blog. You can download the app from the iTunes store here. While I can't speak to the technical quality of the app, I can highly recommend the content.

My China-side blog rehabilitated

As mysteriously as they took it down, Sina.com has restored my blog on their web site (essentially a mirror of this blog), so it's now accessible again from within China. Here's an interesting index of what's sensitive and what's not: the posts on Liu Xiaobo have been deleted, but the posts on Akmal Shaikh remain.

Comment policy

Something about anonymity seems to encourage nastiness and abusive sarcasm in comments that make them very unpleasant to read. (This is true for all blogs with comment functions, not just this one.) If there is some intellectual content to the comment I don't want to censor it, but please note that I am more likely to do so if you remain anonymous. Attaching your name to your comment has, I think, a civilizing influence. And why not take some responsibility for what you write, unless you have genuine grounds for believing it will get you arrested or something like that? In general, I would ask commenters to re-read their comment after finishing it and ask themselves, "Would I want to have this person at my dinner party?"

List of foreign law firms in China

I just came across this list (in Chinese) compiled by the Ministry of Justice and dated Dec. 24, 2009, so it's probably the most up-to-date list in existence. There are 188 of them.

Chinese translation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act

Who knows? This might be useful to someone, somewhere (perhaps in explaining why you can't give a gift, even though personally you'd really love to), so here it is, courtesy of the US Department of Commerce.

Tsinghua China Law Review: call for submissions

I have received the following announcement, which may be of interest to readers. (I confess I am puzzled by their claim to be "the first law journal in China".) (Oct. 20 update: I am informed that they meant to say, "the first student-run law journal in China".)

TSINGHUA CHINA LAW REVIEW, CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS:

Introduction

The Tsinghua China Law Review is the first law journal in China and is
in association with Tsinghua University School of Law in Beijing,
China.  The TCLR is an English-language academic journal aimed at a
global audience, publishing articles on legal topics relating to
China.  The TCLR Board of Editors is a collaborative effort between
foreign students in the Tsinghua LLM Program in Chinese Law and
Chinese students at the Tsinghua School of Law.  The journal follows a
U.S. law journal format.  It is published bi-annually and distributed
to subscribers in the U.S., China, and throughout the world.

Call for Submissions

The TCLR is currently seeking high-quality scholarly articles for its
upcoming issue.  Articles should be original works of legal analysis
on topics relating to Chinese law or other legal issues that pertain
to China.  Citations are required for all points of law, assertions of
fact, or references to other works.  Citations should be in footnotes
and formatted in accordance with the Bluebook
(http://www.legalbluebook.com).

Articles may be submitted by email, in Word format, to
[email protected] or in hard copy, along with a CD-ROM electronic
copy, to the Tsinghua School of Law.  Kindly email the preceding
address for postal information.   Submitted articles will be
considered on a rolling basis.

A Note on the Language of Publication

The main body of articles should be written in English.  However,
Chinese-language legal terminology, citations, or references to laws
or other original sources may be provided in Chinese, and will be
translated by the TCLR editorial staff.  In addition, for articles
that regularly reference Chinese-language laws or other materials, the
TCLR editorial staff will translate the materials to English so that
they may be included as appendices to the article for publication.

Courtney L. Gould
[email protected]

The legal job market in Asia

Here's a blog post on this subject from Above The Law. HT: China Law Blog.