Course

2023 | Chinese Political Legal System

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In this presentation, Professor Howson will situate the rapidly changing Chinese legal system as established after 1979 in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in the far longer history of China’s imperial era (221 BCE to 1911 CE) political and governance systems, with specific attention to the character and uses of substantive “legal” norms, the operation and reception of political legal administrative organs of the state (or dynastic court), the battle between ambitions for an autonomous legal system and a governance system expressive of the reigning ideology (Confucius to Marx), an ever shifting discourse on individual and collective rights protected under law, and the significant effects of the mid-19th century encounter with the West (and a rising Japan) and the more recent engagement with the outside world (from human rights to the global capital markets) after the passing of Mao. While avoiding an argument that China and its contemporary legal system is an instance of “plus ça change,” the presentation will try to make sense of today’s political legal system in China through a much longer lens.

Nicholas Howson is the Pao Li Tsiang Professor of Law at Michigan’s Law School. He served as the managing partner of a major New York law firm’s Asia Practice group based in Beijing. He has handled precedent-setting legal transactions for Chinese corporations and served as a consultant on Chinese law to the Ford Foundation, the UN Development Programme, and the Asian Development Bank. He has advised the Chinese government on amendments to its commercial laws. Professor Howson also serves as an arbitrator for the China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission. He received his BA from Williams College and his JD from Columbia Law School.

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