Promoting Rule of Law and Human Rights in Asia
The U.S.-Asia Law Institute serves as a bridge between Asia and America, fostering mutual understanding on legal issues, and using constructive engagement with our partners to advocate for legal reform.
New and Notable
The Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs announces that it is awarding the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays and Neck Ribbon to Frank K. Upham, the Wilf Family Professor of Property Law emeritus at NYU School of Law and co-founder of the U.S.-Asia Law Institute.
The institute offers one currently enrolled NYU Law student the opportunity to work with the Asian American Scholars Forum, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, to advance and protect the rights of Asian Americans and immigrants through policy and legal analysis and research at the intersections of national security, civil rights, and racial justice. The student will have the status of a Research Assistant and will work under the joint supervision of USALI Executive Director Katherine Wilhelm and Asian American Scholars Forum Executive Director Gisela Perez Kusakawa, an experienced civil rights lawyer. Applications are open until May 25, 2024. Applications will be considered on a rolling basis so please apply as early as possible.
China’s success in cultivating Big Tech firms has enabled it to emerge as a formidable rival to the United States in the digital sphere. But in the past few years, the Chinese government has embarked on a massive regulatory crackdown, targeting its largest tech corporations such as Alibaba, Tencent, and Meituan. Many Western experts have viewed this tech crackdown as an assault on private businesses, causing doubt among investors about whether Chinese firms are still investable. Professor Angela Zhang will go beyond the headlines to unravel the dynamic complexity of China’s regulatory governance. Drawing insights from her newly published book, High Wire: How China Regulates Big Tech and Governs Its Economy, she will introduce the dynamic pyramid model of regulation, an analytical framework that demystifies Chinese regulatory governance. She will examine the impact of the tech crackdown on the administrative state, the competitive landscape, and global tech rivalry. And she will peer into the future by examining China’s strategy for regulating generative artificial intelligence.
Materials from China’s Xinjiang region, including cotton and polysilicon, permeate global supply chains. All products made with such materials are presumptively banned from the United States under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which took effect almost two years ago. Ned Levin, an attorney who has investigated forced labor in China and represents Uyghur asylum seekers in the United States, will explain how the UFLPA came about, how it works, the steps the US government has taken to enforce this massive and unprecedented new mandate, and reactions from companies and trade groups. He will also discuss his work with Uyghur asylum seekers, the challenges they face, and the importance of granting Uyghurs safe haven.
Institute News
USALI Perspectives
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.
Taiwan’s recent general elections were accompanied by extensive attacks of online misinformation designed to confuse and disrupt the process. Authors Wen-Chen Chang and Yu-teng Lin argue that Taiwan’s response to these attacks embodies “civic constitutionalism” in action, with civil society organizations taking the lead to identify and correct the misinformation while the government played a supporting role.
Chinese citizen journalist Zhang Zhan was reported missing days after her scheduled release from prison; the governments of China and Hong Kong rejected Britain’s charge that three men in London were assisting Hong Kong’s intelligence services; a Japanese court ordered a company to compensate a female employee for indirectly discriminating against women in its housing benefits policy; a South Korean court said doctors and medical students lack standing to file an administrative lawsuit against the government’s plan to increase medical school enrollments; members of Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan brawled on the chamber floor after the Kuomintang and Taiwan People’s Party tried to force a vote on bills that would increase the legislative body’s power over the executive branch.
China’s Supreme People’s Court issues rules for selecting cases to include in the new People’s Court Case Database; Hong Kong's Court of Appeal grants the government’s request for an injunction to ban the song “Glory to Hong Kong”; the Japan Fisheries Agency seeks public comment on its plan to allow commercial hunting of fin whales; a South Korean court allows five transgender men to change their legal sex without surgery; Taiwan’s Executive Yuan approves four pieces of anti-fraud legislation.
China's Supreme People’s Court issues rules for determining whether to give prisoners a sentence reduction or parole release if they have failed to pay fines that were part of their sentence; Hong Kong's Court of Final Appeal says courts have no jurisdiction over the city’s National Security Committee; Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announces that 49 countries have joined the effort to craft voluntary international rules for artificial intelligence; South Korea’s legislature orders an independent investigation of the fatal 2022 Halloween stampede in Seoul; a Taipei courts hears final arguments in the case of a transgender man trying to legally change his gender without undergoing surgery.
This Week in Asian Law (May 12-18): Chinese citizen journalist Zhang Zhan was reported missing days after her scheduled release from prison; the governments of China and Hong Kong rejected Britain’s charge that three men in London were assisting Hong Kong’s intelligence services; a Japanese court ordered a company to compensate a female employee for indirectly discriminating against women in its housing benefits policy; a South Korean court said doctors and medical students lack standing to file an administrative lawsuit against the government’s plan to increase medical school enrollments; members of Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan brawled on the chamber floor after the Kuomintang and Taiwan People’s Party tried to force a vote on bills that would increase the legislative body’s power over the executive branch.