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In the first half of the twentieth century, Russian emigrants in China established a network of higher education institutions based on the prerevolutionary Russian educational system. By referring to memoirs and publications in the periodical press, the author traces the history of the most significant educational establishments: Harbin School of Law, Harbin Polytechnic Institute, State Higher Teacher Training Institute, and Institute of Oriental and Commercial Studies. These institutions also played a role in forming the Chinese intelligentsia, with Russian faculty successfully training future engineers, lawyers, Orientalist scholars, teachers, theologians, and musicians. [This article was translated by John Riedl.]

Does legal representation affect critical judicial decisions? This Article highlights a paradox at the heart of the court sentencing processes used for death-eligible drug offenders in China. On the one hand, lawyers are regarded as a staple of due process. On the other, court decisions are insensitive to the availability (whether drug offenders have access to legal assistance) and the quality (the varieties and the conditions of legal services provided by private versus court-appointed attorneys) of legal representation. I argue that this perplexing contradiction derives from the institutional alienation of criminal lawyers in China, a theory containing three main dimensions: power deficit, identity confliction, and proceduralbased legitimacy. The defense lawyer has little power to determine capital drug sentencing decisions; at the same time, criminal defense lawyers are unable to fully realize themselves in their professional activities. They are used as instruments to advance bureaucratic and political interests and are therefore exposed to impoverished and instrumental relationships with judicial institutions and their own activities. This paradox—the insignificance of differences—takes place in China’s non-adversarial judicial settings and its authoritarian political environment. It is differentiated but connected with a paradox between eradicating inequality and providing adequate assistance to the most marginalized defendants in adversarial criminal justice systems. This Article adopts mixed research methods, including qualitative interviews of legal professionals across China and quantitative measures based on a regression analysis of national-level (N=10,132) and provincial-specific (N=3,955) samples of court judgments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Power and its distribution have always been the central themes of international law, yet international lawyers have paid limited attention to the correlation between power shifts and legal change. Notably, international law effectively operates when balance of power is sustained. With this qualification, this paper examines the relationship of international law with the change in power distribution, arguing that international law should proactively attend to power in order to contribute to the peaceful reconfiguration of the international system. Furthermore, this paper explores the mechanism of power shift being transmitted to law shift and specifically adduces the process and effectiveness of hegemonic international law change centered on UNCLOS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The narrative that banks, government departments and state-owned enterprises are the foremost protagonists in shaping China's outbound capital flows has been a commonplace view. This article seeks to expand the focus to include other under-scrutinised players: lawyers. With reference to exporting industries (such as shipping and natural gas), this article explains how lawyers – in tandem with China's governmental and judicial organs – have shifted from enabling outflows to postponing them, as a result of China's Covid-19 force majeure regime. Even with capital on pause, Covid-19 has also kept lawyers busy, prompting them to think about how to maximise their firm's proximity to the clients they have and to new clients that they want to win. Accordingly, this article also provides an overview of the techniques used by predominantly Anglo-American law firms to gain access to new legal markets during Covid-19, with a view to winning more work from Chinese capital-exporters and their foreign counterparties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As repression grows in China, some pastors, lawyers, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are neither resisting it nor withdrawing from the public sphere, but instead are finding ways to adapt. Coping strategies include the following: being transparent about their activities and maintaining close communication with the authorities; cultivating allies in the government and giving credit to officials for their achievements; keeping the size of their organizations nonthreatening and consenting to a heightened party presence; staying a safe distance from "red lines" and focusing on less controversial issues; encouraging their constituents to accept compromises and government priorities; distancing themselves from activists who speak out against restrictions; shedding connections with foreign countries; and arguing that loyalty and moderation are the best means to make progress. The hope is that cooperation and exhibiting an understanding view of the Chinese Communist Party's motives will preserve space to operate and suggest a path toward long-term coexistence. Accommodating pastors, lawyers, and NGOs take the regime as a given and work with the state rather than against it. By doing so, they retain some agency, even as deepening authoritarianism blurs the line between accommodation and co-optation. Potentially restive professionals are directed away from activities and ways of thinking that the authorities do not like and toward organizing themselves and acting in a manner that is deemed acceptable. They learn to avoid confrontation while they are steered to a safe place and rewarded (or at least tolerated) if they stay there. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2016, China instituted an "Admission of Guilt and Acceptance of Punishment" (plea leniency) system to formalize the legal system's approach to guilty pleas in criminal proceedings. To legitimize this new justice scheme, it decreed that every accused must be provided with access to legal representation to safeguard the voluntariness and accuracy of the plea. This article examines this mandatory defense counsel assistance and questions the extent to which Chinese lawyers comply with the legislative goal. Based on interviews with 34 lawyers who have served as defense attorneys in Shanghai, it is found that lawyers in plea leniency cases are essentially confined to three peripheral roles—"explainer," "persuader," and "observer." Instead of conducting earnest work in plea negotiations and legal counseling, Chinese lawyers often "collegially" cooperate with criminal justice agencies (gongjianfa 公检法) to urge the accused to admit they are guilty. The findings indicate that the state's paramount concern for efficiency inherently marginalizes counsel's bargaining position. Pragmatic considerations also influence the defense counsel's conduct: a desire to maintain a beneficial relationship with legal authorities and unwillingness to challenge the generally accusatory, draconian, and conviction-centered nature of Chinese criminal proceedings. Overall, plea leniency catalyzes a further emasculated role for lawyers, who function primarily as a mechanical constituent of the country's increasingly monotonous assembly-line version of criminal justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, Chinese government implemented and tested a trial waiver system in 18 large cities during 2016–2018. Using data collected from surveys of prosecutors and defense lawyers in one of the cities, the present study examines the main challenges in the implementation by comparing prosecutor and defense lawyer views. The main issues examined include the legal scope of trial waivers, the lawyer and victim roles in trial waivers, and the risk of corruption and power abuse. The findings indicate that lawyer respondents significantly differed from prosecutor respondents in their views on the issues. Defense lawyers were more likely to adopt a liberal stance and took a critical attitude toward the issues than prosecutors were. Their characteristic responses may well reside in their legal statuses and related interests in the Chinese legal context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses how countries for which the rule of law is not only a core value but also an indispensable tool might respond to China's use of sanctions against people who speak out against its policies, particularly those targeting lawyers. It explores the sanctions imposed by China against people who served under the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump and against Essex Court barristers in England.

Based on the analysis of the online profiles of 205 BRI Talent Bank lawyers as accredited by China’s national bar association, this article generates important empirical knowledge about the approaches and processes that a nation-state may use in directing the internationalization of legal professionals. In addition to designing the general roadmap and offering broad incentives, the state has demonstrated a much more handson approach. By collecting the so-called “state-adjacent” lawyers and commissioning them to take some concrete first steps stipulated in the roadmap, the Chinese state effectively envisions them as role models for other lawyers to follow to ensure that its policy goals regarding the BRI are achieved in the Chinese legal profession. Such vision, however, is not very well-realized which is particularly evidenced by the zero-accession rate of Talent Bank law firms into the state-led BRI Lawyers Association initiative. These findings reaffirm that Chinese lawyers are calculative and pragmatic entrepreneurs who know how to strike the balance between winning legitimacy from the state and pursuing their own internationalization trajectories based on their own needs and competence. Perhaps contrary to the expectations of the state, such an image does not seem to change much even regarding a group of lawyers that have close ties with and/or hold official approvals from the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With a focus on legal and other organizational actors beyond the state, this article seeks to expand the theory of conditions under which legal occupations will mobilize to fight for basic legal freedoms within states. It elaborates the line of scholarship on legal complexes and political liberalism within states since the 17th century. First, we catalog harms that international organizations (IOs) of many kinds seek to protect in the more than 190 states in the world. Second, we elaborate the concept of an international legal complex (ILC) as a collective actor in the global struggle for basic legal freedoms. We illustrate these two steps with new data on China drawn from a wider project. We show what harms mobilize the ILC, international human rights organizations (IHROs) and an international governmental organization, the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC). We focus on accountability devices as tools differentially deployed by the ILC, IOs, and UNHRC in theirefforts to influence the institutionalization of basic legal freedoms, an open civil society, and a moderate state in China. The illustrative case of China provides a framework for research and theory on all other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article complicates the conventional wisdom that Chinese lawyers are either politically liberal activists or apolitical hired guns by training our attention on the group of lawyers who choose to stand adjacent to the state and participate in governance. Through an examination of how and why winners of the state-sanctioned Outstanding Lawyer Award participate in politics, we illustrate how state-adjacent lawyers provide the state with information and persuade others to behave in ways the state considers appropriate. Although proximity to power affords some social and professional benefits, award winners are also motivated by a commitment to improving Chinese society. By highlighting the political role played by lawyers who serve as a bridge between state and society, we open the door to future research on the relationship between the state and professionals in other industries and countries, and call for continued attention to how inequality shapes opportunities for political participation in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The renowned American lawyer Jerome Cohen gave an exclusive conference on the Russia-Ukraine-China triangle. In his presentation, Cohen explained the main aspects of the conflict situation between Russia and Ukraine, as well as the current situation and the role of China. Cohen is known for his expertise in Chinese Law and Government, and he was one of the architects of Nixon's visit to China in the 1970s. He also mentioned the tensions between the United States and China regarding the relationship with Taiwan. [Extracted from the article]

How do dignity discourses shift the framing of struggles for basic legal freedoms? Based on our decade-long empirical research on lawyers and politics in China, we provide a theoretical intervention in a burgeoning socio-legal scholarship on dignity in this article. Drawing inductively from in-depth interviews, we find that a powerful current of dignity consciousness and sentiment, joined by an acute awareness of dignity harms, flows through the community of Chinese activist lawyers. Their dignity discourses can be witnessed and explained in four streams of awareness: (1) dignity experienced as an ideal in juridical, philosophical, and theological idioms; (2) dignity takings experienced indirectly and directly in the property takings of clients' homes, farms, and livelihood; (3) assaults on dignity through property takings of spaces of religious worship; and (4) the takings of professional dignity from the lawyers charged with defending the dignity of others. This article points to the value of dignity framings in the general theory of collective action for basic legal freedoms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The "One Belt One Road" Initiative combines the Silk Road Economic Belt and the Twenty-First Century Maritime Silk Road. The hardware of this Initiative is most impressive, particularly in infrastructure construction. By examining the participation of China's lawyers, we can come to understand the "software" which is vital to the success of this Initiative. We will examine eight points about China's lawyers: 1. Young and Eastern; 2. "Going Global" Strategy; 3. Preparations; 4. Support Materials; 5. Recruitment of Foreign Lawyers; 6. Dispute Settlement and Arbitration; 7. The Chinese Communist Party; 8. Legal Culture and Ethics. This examination will be largely descriptive, as it is too early to analyse their successes and failures in the new environment. We are observing a work in progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A professional code of conduct for lawyers is a standardized embodiment of professional ethics, and it is also the way of realizing self-regulation in the profession in China. Understanding the status of professional ethics within the profession is an important prerequisite for the effective regulation of the legal profession. Through a questionnaire survey of the general public and of legal professionals nationwide, one can describe the overall professional ethics of lawyers in China at a macro level. Through empirical research, the survey found that there are significant differences between various groups in how they understand and assess the current professional ethics of lawyers in China. These differences are based on such factors as occupation, gender, litigation experience, and educational level. The overall assessment and the differentiation pattern for professional ethics of lawyers are of great significance in guiding the improvement of the refonn and the regulation of the legal profession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's rapid rise as a global power in the early twenty-first century has significant economic and political consequences to markets and legal systems across the world, particularly in Asia. Focusing on the rapid growth of Chinese law firms in Hong Kong in recent years, this article examines how a contested gateway for the globalization of Chinese law is being constructed through China's outbound investments, the overseas expansion of Chinese law firms, and the mobility of lawyers between Western and Chinese firms. Based on empirical analyses of the career profiles of all partners in a sample of sixteen Chinese law offices and their associated local law firms in Hong Kong as of May 2018, as well as archival data on partner moves to and from Chinese law firms during 2009-2018, this study captures the dynamics of a critical moment for both Hong Kong and the future of Chinese law firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research suggests that cause lawyers are a diverse group. Death penalty lawyers with attachment to political institutions and a strong commitment to procedurals tend to have a unique path to professional identification, participation in the legal process and acquiring the ability to affect case outcomes. Borrowing from Hilbink's typologies and Liu and Halliday's analytical framework, this study examines in detail the practices of proceduralist and progressive elite lawyers. It uses a high-profile capital case, the Nian Bin case, as a case study to analyse the motivation and strategies of the lead defence lawyer in the context of progressive proceduralist cause lawyers. Relevant theoretical and policy implications as well as suggestions for future studies are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores and analyzes the fourth century Chinese legal official and legal scholar Liu Song's (d. 300) theory of adjudication through a full translation into English (the first translation of its kind) of his famous "Memorial on Adjudication," which urged judicial and legal reforms during the reign of Emperor Hui (r. 290-306) of the Western Jin dynasty (265-316). This article argues that Liu believed that written law should reign supreme over other factors (e.g., societal needs, public opinion) in adjudicating cases. He was also one of the first major Chinese legal thinkers to explicitly set forth what we would today call the "legality principle." But while Liu's theory of adjudication was centered on written law, it was also motivated by a desire to control the power and discretion of judicial officials and preserve the authority of the emperor. Liu's theory of adjudication is significant in the history of Chinese legal thought as it runs counter to the so-called "qing-li-fa" (QLF) theory of adjudication, which has strongly influenced contemporary theoretical accounts and descriptions of traditional Chinese law as a whole. This article also briefly considers Liu's theory in a comparative legal theory perspective, arguing that Liu's theory is different from key Western theories on adjudication--namely, Hart's and Dworkin's theories of adjudication with respect to hard cases. Finally, this article also briefly discusses the relevance of Liu Song's legal thought to 21st century Chinese law, given the current Chinese leadership's penchant for using traditional Chinese political and legal philosophy as sources and justifications for government and administration. This article suggests that Liu Song is a figure whose legal thought could be equally palatable to rule of law reformers and more conservative party officials in China today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Platform economy breaks into the legal profession by pooling lawyers with different specializations into a simple user-friendly platform, consolidating the lower-tier supply side of the legal market and generating an economy of scale. This paper is the very first empirical piece looking into China's online legal service portals. It shows that the intermediary functions of the portals as the "matchmaker" between the supply and the demand side are often comingled with certain substantive legal services that cannot be easily unbundled from each other. Given the grand information asymmetry in legal service provision and the potential importance users may attach to the portals' recommendations, the quality of such intermediation and matchmaking still leaves much to be desired. However, the portals do help to improve the access to justice in China by virtue of offering an extra channel for acquiring and comparing potentially useful information, which is made available at a much lower cost than visiting a physical law firm. Thus, the regulators of China's legal profession should strive to improve the quality of, rather than block up the source of the information. To that end, this paper proposes, based on the inspiration of the ABS regime, an alternative license for these online legal service providers, which imposes minimal regulation and leaves room for new innovative business structures to evolve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author discusses the contributions of Chinese lawyers to the existing developments on online dispute resolution (ODR) in China. Topics include the importance of ODR as part of Diversified Dispute Resolution promoted by the Supreme People's Court (SPC), the use of blockchain technology to Hangzhou Westlake Court to prevent tampering with digital evidence, and the use of the Internet technology in the Litigation Platform for the litigation process.

One peculiar feature of China's legal system is the existence of "weiquan" or rights-protection lawyers. This small, informal movement comprised of lawyers, academics, and activists emerged in the early twentyfirst century alongside legal reforms that sought to increase the rule of law in China. In general, these lawyers work on civil and political rights cases and often make rights-based claims against the government. In the summer of 2015, the Chinese Communist Party ("CCP") detained over 200 of these rights-protection lawyers, a human rights violation that many observers viewed as a retreat from prior commitments to the development of the rule of law. This Note uses two theoretical frameworks--rational choice theory and behavioral law & economics--in an attempt to explain why the CCP, an authoritarian regime, would allow this movement to develop in the first instance and why, after more than a decade, the CCP reversed course. The human rights literature has generally assumed a rational choice framework when analyzing a State's failure to comply with human rights norms. The major principle of rational choice theory is that an actor will pursue activities that she expects will maximize her utility. Some recent scholarship has used social science research, often referred to as behavioral research, to call this principle into question in the context of human rights. Even though much of the current literature treats these two frameworks as competitors, this Note explores how both rational choice theory and behavioral research offer insights into distinct aspects of a State's decision to deviate from human rights norms. After outlining these two frameworks in Part I, Part II provides background on the development of China's legal system and the CCP's decision to detain China's rights-protection lawyers. Part III utilizes both rational choice and behavioral research to explain why the CCP tolerated the emergence of rightsprotection lawyers and why it seemingly reverted to the expected authoritarian position by cracking down on these lawyers. This Note then concludes with a discussion of the distinct but complementary strategies that rational choice and behavioral research suggest could improve compliance with human rights norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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One Belt, One Road initiative, as a centrepiece of China's limitless economic rise, offers ample room for lawyers and law firms to generate new work and capitalize on new opportunities. Utilizing survey method, this study offers a new insight into what are the expectations within the legal services industry in PRC, and what are some of the peculiarities stretching lawyers beyond their traditional roles. Addressing short-term and long-term expectations of lawyers, and approaches utilized by law firms to authentically connect with potential clients, this study offers further insight into practice areas of current and future demand, and law firms' outreach activities and strategies. The relationship between PRC government and the legal services industry in the context of the One Belt, One Road initiative, and the special role Hong Kong (SAR) has to play within the initiative are giving a completion to this survey-based study, that covers geographically the Mainland and Hong Kong (SAR). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers an explanation on China's fear on the aim of the U.S. to bring regime change in Beijing, just like the so-called color revolution in Ukraine and those of the Arab Spring. The conviction of several Chinese lawyers who were found colluding with the U.S. forces is mentioned. Information on the video released by the Supreme People's Procuratorate of China which states that their way of life must be protected against foreign influence is offered.

Based on survey data of 348 lawyers in Fujian, this study empirically tests how lawyers' political embeddedness (i.e., lawyers' bureaucratic, instrumental, and/or affective ties to the courts and prosecutors) has impacted upon their defense practices in criminal trials and their pursuit of liberal values. Our data reveal that politically embedded lawyers report more (not fewer) difficulties in practice (e.g., in requesting witness testimony in court, requesting new evidence, and requesting new evaluations and investigations of the case). Clients are more satisfied with representation by politically non-embedded lawyers than lawyers who are embedded. Using statistical evidence, this paper analyzes potential reasons and draws out the implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers news brief on topic including U.S. government overplayed its hand in prosecuting U.S. academics under the controversial China Initiative, three federal courts ruled last week. In separate cases, attorneys for the Department of Justice (DOJ) had maintained that chemist Franklin Tao, materials scientist Zhengdong Cheng, and mathematician Mingqing Xiao jeopardized the nation's security and defrauded the government by deliberately hiding ties to Chinese institutions.

The article discusses the legal aspects of the establishment of the deposit insurance system of China as of 2015, and it mentions China's Regulations on Deposit Insurance, as well as practical advice for legal practitioners in China. The Chinese government's efforts to strengthen the nation's financial regulations are examined, as well as protection against financial risks and China's Regulations on Deposit Insurance which came into effect on May 1, 2015.

The National Lawyers College of the People's Republic of China was established in Baoding City in 2012. This note examines the professional and governmental context for the college, the courses that have been presented, and the potential for the college as part of post-qualification education for China's lawyers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

From a legal practitioner's perspective, the author of this article (1) analyzes what translation means in the jurisprudence of Hong Kong-in particular translation which provides the "exact effect of the language used under the circumstances" as defined in HKSAR v Egan & Others [2010] 13 HKCFAR 314, 333; (2) lays out the input, theoretical and otherwise, from translation theorists, highlighting the importance of high-level translational competence to the legal system of Hong Kong and its administration of justice; and (3) concludes that "full equivalence" may well be practically unattainable in legal translation, yet it is an ideal which every translator should strive for, and to this end, linguists and lawyers would have their mutually reciprocal roles to play. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has witnessed significant changes in its criminal justice system in the last three decades. As one of the major components of criminal procedure reform, the (re)emergence of criminal defense lawyers (and their expanding roles) is among the most noteworthy. Nevertheless, research on criminal defense work in China continues to post serious questions about the effectiveness of criminal defense in the current Chinese legal system. Based on recent survey data from a diverse group of criminal justice practitioners in J province, China, this study examines how actual criminal defense practices are evaluated by defense attorneys themselves and by the dominant 'iron triangle' (i.e., the coalition of the court, the prosecution, and the police officials). Our empirical findings consistently reveal that the work of Chinese defense lawyers is grossly undervalued by the 'iron triangle'. Chinese criminal defense lawyers concur readily with the 'iron triangle' that the effectiveness of their legal representation is questionable and that their work bears little substantive impact on the final outcomes of the criminal trials. Implications for future reforms and research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the development of People's Republic of China (PRC) on its legal profession with topics mention include the history of PRC, the development of the lawyer's training and its qualification system and the reform of law firms.