The judicial production of law and the legislative production of law make a striking distinction between the two legal traditions. Despite of these differences, judges in both legal traditions in adjudicating cases have a common task, which is the application of legal rules to the facts of cases pending for judgments. The tension between the certainty and the discretion  is universal for any legal system and, to a certain extent, it poses a hard dilemma for the rhetoric of rule of law. In the transitional countries such as China where rapid social changes and transformations take place, the judiciary and judges can not escape from taking more active roles in interpreting or even law making process. It arouses much controversy, particularly in continental legal traditions, for the judiciary is deemed to perform a mechanical role in adjudicating cases. This article intends to analyze the needs for judicial law-making function in China and its reasons. It reveals that judicial interpretation constitutes an important source of law despite its ambiguous legislative position. The article argues that judicial activism is inevitable against the transitional nature of current Chinese society.

This paper is a study on the abolishment of death penalty in China. The author first reviewed the ancient death penalty in China, looked at the history of death penalty from its evolution and reform, then examined the status quo of China s death penalty, and brought forward a practical question of what course should the flourishing death penalty in China follow in the international trend of abolishing and restricting death penalty. In this regard, the author analyzed the conditions for abolishing death penalty from the perspectives of public opinion s influence, choice of politicians, control of crimes and structure of criminal penalty. He also designed a course for China to restrict and abolish death penalty from the legislation setting and judicial restriction, expecting to find a practical way to abolish death penalty.

In order to avoid independent directors from being against minority shareholders, and urging them to play the role of checking up big shareholders and insiders with full power in listed companies, the rules for independent directors shall be amended gradually. Currently, the reform on the independent director regime shall be made in some aspects. First, the positions of independent directors shall be held by qualified professionals; Second, independent directors shall pass the exam for such posts; Third, independent directors shall take full-time jobs; Fourth, the firms of independent directors shall be established with limited partnership liability; Fifth, independent directors shall undertake joint liabilities.

It is the duty of literature on criminal law to record the states orthodox criminal legislation and justice. However, it is difficult to find a systematic and sufficient historical literature for directly expounding the criminal reconciliation outside the state criminal litigation system. This is a civil act among people or a non-statutory criminal reconciliation. Meanwhile, the object of historiography of modern criminal law is usually limited to the evolution and development of the state criminal law and official criminal justice. Thus researchers focus on these areas leaving little systematic evidence for scattered, local, individual, non-statutory and non-normalized criminal reconciliations between victims and offenders. However, upon investigation of the long standing institutional change of Chinese society as well as an analysis of the social reality reflected by Chinese traditional social and legal cultures, it can be confirmed that criminal reconciliation in ancient Chinese society existed reasonably and necessarily.

Judicial reform has become an important issue of Chinese people. At the end of 2004, The Preliminary Comment on the Judicial System and Working Mechanism form the Central Leading Group of Judicial System Reform   is conferred by the central group of judicial reform. This paper analyses the achievements China has made in the last five years, especially in the area of court reform, judge reform, evidence reform, judge reform. Beyond this, this paper also expounds the prospect of China s judicial reform in improving the judicial independence, the judge quality, the court organization reforms and the reforms in evidence system.

In Late Qing Dynasty, the Chinese Law Family was disintegrated and the Western Law was introduced into China. Finally, China adopted the European continental Roman law tradition. This paper analyzes the reason for China s borrowing of such legal system and probes its development and reform in the later years. It also tries to answer the question of what will be the possible impact upon the current Chinese legal system since China now implements the policy of one country two systems  in order to realize its reunification with Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. In addition, it will make some prediction upon the future development of Chinese legal system.

Administrative procedural law has the value of justice, efficiency and order. Codifying administrative procedural law in China means promoting the development of democratic politics, protecting basic civil rights, curbing and eliminating corruption, building a clean and honest government, overcoming bureaucracy and enhancing administrative efficiency. Establishing an administrative procedure code that unifies administrative legislation, enforcement and judicial procedures is a goal that must be realized in the future.

Domestic violence, as its great harm to family members and family relationship, is one of the important issues to be tackled by family law. In this regard, China’s Marriage Law mainly adopts non-litigation measures, including dissuasion and curb of perpetrators, mediation for the parties concerned and imposition of administrative punishment. From the legal techniques in family resource sharing, the diversity of interests within a family, the complexity of family relationships and the privacy of family determine the non-antagonistic, nonlinear and non-proactive measures for adjusting family relationship. Further, in the principle of “family priority based on personal independence” and with the prerequisites of the prevention framework set up in the Marriage Law, it is suggested to make restrictive provisions on parental rights in protecting the minors, fully utilize the current civil mediation system to settle family disputes, and set up a system of “personal protection and behavioral correction.”

The term “super-national treatment” is used as a popular legal term in China. However, its definition and relationship with national treatment obligations have been highly debated. After tracking its history, comparing with the general meaning of national treatment in the context of international law, especially of the law of WTO (World Trade Organization)law, it shows that super-national treatment is a misconception of national treatment. With the gradual repeal of the preferential treatment of foreign-funded enterprises in China, super-national treatment, as a misleading legal term, should come to the end.

Public domain is a core rule of copyright law, under which various creative materials are available for an author to use without charge or liability for infringement, hence ensuring the effective implementation of copyright law. Public domain is characterized by openness, public ownership, irrevocability and formality. Based on the premise that the author’s work will not be interfered, public domain ultimately aims at the enlargement of its own universe and prosperity of the culture of human society. Its introduction into copyright law satisfies both historical and logical demands. Without its acknowledgement, copyright cannot be justified. In that sense, public domain and copyright can be deemed as twins. Public domain is not only an existing institution, but also an ideological tendency or a methodology. It has evaluative and inspective values towards copyright. It is an important precondition of copy-rights, and what is more, an important measure for controlling the expansion and realizing the purpose of copyright.

Textiles and clothing (T&C) trade after lapse of quotas in 2005 has revealed China’s overwhelming comparative advantage in the manufacture and export of T&C products. China’s advantage in this sector attracted the use of trade remedies by WTO members under WTO laws, often in a manner contrary to WTO norms. China has also been subjected to origin-specific safeguard regimes. The EU and the US have been leading users of safeguards against China’s T&C exports. The use of safeguards by the EU and the US raises a number of questions that impact on the future use of trade remedies by other countries. The use of safeguards also poses challenges for the multilateral trading system. This paper analyses the use of safeguards against China’s T&C exports with a view to anticipating the future use of safeguards in the quota-free trading environment for T&C.

The public participation and the system of the People’s Congress constitute a basic mode of China’s modern democracy. This article first analyzes the lessons from the development of public participatory democracy since the founding of People’s Republic of China, especially those related to the promotion of public participation and the establishment of rule of law in administration and constitutionalism, then, and study the strategic value and potential risks of public participation to the development of human society, the necessity and channels of law protection on public participation. At last, it discusses the trend of public participatory democracy in the environment of globalization and informationization, and its impact on the reconstruction in respect of administrative rule of law and constitutionalism.

This paper analyzes the origin of Chinese legalism, its major propositions and characteristics. It compares the difference between Chinese legalism and other Chinese philosophies including Confucianism, Taoism and Mohism. It also discloses the difference of Chinese legalism and Western legalism in relation with morality. Western legalism defended the rule-of-law but argued against the morality of law. In contrast, Chinese legalism, especially in the early Pre-Qin era, did not separate morality from law. However, the fidelity to law in Chinese legalism was interpreted as the fidelity to the monarch, and thus being different from the Western rule-of-law.

Credit card fraud is a new type of fraud amended into the Criminal Law of China in 1997. The “credit card” under credit card fraud is interpreted as a very board concept, which includes debit card and virtually all electronic payment cards used in ordinary payment, credit loan, transfer and settlement of account, cash deposit and withdrawal. Therefore, it is necessary for the legislature to revise “credit card” under this special fraud into “electronic payment card,” and “credit card fraud” into “electronic payment card fraud,” which will be understood easily and precisely. “Use” and “fraudulent use” of credit card under this fraud is defined as ordinary use of credit card, including withdrawal cash with authentic or forged credit card from ATMs. It is unreasonable to define “malicious overdraft” as a form of credit card fraud under the Chinese Criminal Law. In the future amendment, this kind of criminal conduct shall be separated as independent named as “malicious overdraft” or “abuse of credit card” under the Criminal Law with less stiff statutory punishment than that of credit card fraud. Besides, under the Chinese Criminal Law, stealing credit card and using it is held as “theft,” which is neither reasonable nor logical. Therefore, it should be revised in the future criminal law.

In the course of history, the meaning of fa (a Chinese character with an approximate meaning of law ) has not been invariable, and its connotation in modern times has been enriched constantly, so as to incorporate many elements of ancient li (ceremony). If the modern concept of law, already changed and still changing, is to be used to mechanically compare and interpret traditional Chinese law, misunderstandings might arise. Actually, li and fa are indispensable components of traditional Chinese law, and the lack of necessary study of the li will prevent us from understanding and explaining the spirit of traditional Chinese law. In traditional Chinese law, fa  usually refers to an institutional dimension, especially after Qin and Han dynasties, whereas li, especially li yi (moral basis for rites and ceremonies), is where the value and spirit of traditional Chinese law can be found.

Started as an undefined US military project to the current global network, the Internet has been developing and improved at an amazing speed, which also brought out enormous challenges to the traditional way of life worldwide. By analyzing the features of the Internet, this paper reveals the impacts of the Internet on jurisdictional principles applied in traditional international civil and commercial cases and aims to apply traditional rules under the new environment of the Internet. In addition, by referring to the international uniform legislation and from the US judicial theories and practices, this paper also brings out reflections and suggestions regarding this issue.

Legal principle, which underlies the value of the legal system, is supposed to be the origin and basis of concrete legal rules. It has also resulted from abstracting and summarizing the value and spirit of these legal rules. In light of the universality and hierarchy of legal principle, the principles of the international protection system of intellectual property rights (IPR) can be divided into the following two types: one is the fundamental principles applied to the what, why and how a legal system shall be constructed, such as principles of sovereignty, equality and mutual benefit, joint development, and international cooperation,¹ which also can be expressed as the principles of sovereignty, international coordination and cooperation, fairness and justice.² The other type includes those existing in the legal system and capable of being applied directly, such as the principle of national treatment, principle of minimum standard, principle of independence (for industrial property right), principle of independent protection (for copyright), principle of compulsory implementing patent (for patent right) and doctrine of priority (for industrial property right), etc.³ In my opinion, the principles of the international protection system of IPR shall follow the latter model, indicating that they shall be provided and written in the international conventions on the grounds that they can be applied directly, and that they can be universally applied to the whole international protection system of IPR instead of exclusive application to one certain system. Hereupon, the author believes that principles concerning the international protection system of IPR should include the principles of national treatment, minimum protection standard and public interest.

This article introduces the case of Yang Naiwu and Xiao Baicai, a famous case in late imperial China, and its important value for the study of legal history of the Qing Dynasty. Based on the analysis of this case, this article focuses on the issue of the responsibility of the magistrate Liu xitong, the judge of this case, who analyzed the mentation of his miscarriage under the pressure of the rules about judges responsibilities in their judgment through which reveal the stimulation and passive infection of the judgment of the judges.

Personal health care and medical treatment information are both personal information which can be used as a sign to identify each individual. Such information shall be under the control of the owner. The comprehensiveness of personal health care and medical treatment information makes it more valuable than the simplex personal information. The controlling right of personal health care and medical treatment information is irretrievable once deprived. The rights of controlling, managing and using regarding personal health care and medical treatment information can be separated appropriately. The right of privacy is an independent personality right. For the protection of public interests, the right of personal privacy shall be appropriately limited. Meanwhile, the government shall be responsible for the protection of personal health care and medical treatment information.

Defining relevant markets is the foundation of establishing main antimonopoly regimes and the key issue in enforcing antimonopoly law, which often reflects the leniency or strictness of enforcement. In the process of defining relevant product market, the main factors to be considered include physical function and use purpose of product, product price, consumers’ preference and substitutable possibility of product supply. In defining relevant geographic market, the main consideration involves transportation cost and product characteristics, product price, consumers’ preference and barriers to market access. On the occasion of forthcoming enforcement of the Antimonopoly Law of China, the enforcement authorities should draw up a specific rule of the definition of relevant markets.

With the shifting of the economic pattern and the developing of administrative law, the modern constitutionalism of China has adopted a progressive development process. Over 20 years, the development of democracy, the rule of law and the human rights protection clearly illustrate this point. For the gradually developing constitutionalism, the theory of limited rational is a theoretical basis, the stability of society is a social basis, the changing economic system is a economic basis, and Confucianism is a cultural basis. Constitutionalism of China should continue to go in such an active, steady and gradual way.

Evolving technologies have created many exciting opportunities to increase the availability of legal information, and to facilitate the organization and publication of this information. With the globalization of almost all legal issues, increased access to primary and secondary resources in electronic format across jurisdictional lines has been a welcomed development by academics, lawyers, international business entities, and others. However, the myriad of legal systems and approaches to maintaining legislative and judicial records has led to a host of challenges in regard to coherent and efficient management of legal information. Focusing on development of legal information systems in China and the United States, this paper will open with a summary of the exciting current and emerging technological advances in legal research methodologies and in the electronic publication of cases, statutes, regulations and other critical resources. The paper will then analyze corresponding challenges, including authenticity, accuracy, currency and consistency. The analysis will include discussion of the varying quality of legal information resources proliferating in the Internet, as well as the host of issues surrounding electronic publishing of legal information by government entities and commercial enterprises. The paper will conclude with a prospective analysis of the manner in which emerging technologies can enhance knowledge management of legal information and strengthen legal systems in both common law and civil law jurisdictions.

China’s socialist market economy is a market economy co-existing with a large public sector of the economy, affected by the State as a policymaker, a regulator and an important actor along with private ones; general interests in principle prevail over individual ones. A major role of the law is of providing the tools for administrative leadership and efficient macro-control. Legal and policy documents concur in indicating a model for the developing Chinese legal system: not as Western-style “rule of law” (r.o.l.); more and better socialist laws; effective supervision at all levels; intense macro-control over private economy; more efficient, law-abiding administration and legal institutions. The governing authorities are at different levels, according to the size/impact of each specific business, and each of them has or may have a say beyond the law, so implementing full macro- and micro-control on the market at various levels, through a substantial number of “policy checks” at appropriate junctions or in blank areas of the law. Differentiated “modes” of the law could be the results of a coordinated absorption within the socialist frame of values, mechanisms, norms, formants hailing from different sources.

The decision of the International Court of Justice in the case concerning the application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (“Genocide Convention”) highlights states’ obligations under the Convention, especially the obligation to prevent. When it comes to the case concerning the International Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (“Racial Discrimination Convention”), the decision of the Court indicating provisional measures seemingly purported to generalize its jurisprudence in the Genocide Case. By elaborating this kind of new jurisprudence, the Court echoed to the responsibility to protect, as well as to Article 48 and Article 54 of the Draft Articles on the Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts (“Draft Articles of State Responsibility”). It appears that each State Party should have an obligation to intervene in the coming genocide incidence, perhaps as well as in the coming racial discrimination cases. Nevertheless it is unclear in what manner a state could implement it effectively.

In 2009 after a six-month investigation, the case regarding Coca-Cola Company’s acquisition of Huiyuan Juice Co., Ltd. (Huiyuan Juice) ended when the Ministry of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China (MOFCOM) rejected this acquisition. This is the first anti-monopoly case since the implementation of Anti-Monopoly Law of China (the “AML”). Foreign acquisitions introduce capital, technical and management experience into China, while they also impair competition in China and lead to the disappearance of some Chinese national brands. In recent years, a series of foreign acquisitions attract extensive attention and even controversies. This phenomenon should be addressed rationally. Following the case concerning Coca-Cola’s attempted acquisition of Huiyuan Juice, this article first assesses the pros and cons of foreign acquisitions, and then analyzes foreign acquisitions by the specific requirements of the AML, pointing out the rationalization, grounds and complexity of the law applicable to foreign acquisitions.

The Criminal Procedure Law was promulgated 30 years ago, which is an important starting point for the construction of Chinese Criminal Procedure Law system, and its first amendment in 1996 further adapted to the demand of democracy, the rule of law and social reforms, which might be viewed as a milestone in the history of Chinese criminal justice though the core issues here had not been thoroughly solved. Thereafter, three inherent defects remain in Chinese criminal justice, for which China has also taken initiatives to further amend the Criminal Procedure Law. However, there are various challenges and dilemmas in further amendments to the Criminal Procedure Law, including lack of a constitutional basis, lack of complementary judicial reforms, departmentalism in legislation and restraints of traditional ideas. The orientation of reforms shall be further improvement of the adversary system, focusing on complying with international conventions and coordinating with the results of the institutional reforms of justice in China.

With the deepening of globalization, many provisions in the Nationality Law of China promulgated in 1980 are already out of time and some provisions are easy to trigger dual nationalities. Consequently, while sticking to the basic principle of the Nationality Law, certain provisions of the Nationality Law of China should be gradually improved according to the present situation of international and domestic development, and the implementing guidelines for the Nationality Law should be introduced to construct a relatively complete legal system to adjust and regulate various relationships of nationality.

The bankruptcy law is an integral part of the legal system of societies with market economy. After many years of preparation, the draft of the new bankruptcy law in China was submitted to the Standing Committee of the National People s Congress twice and is waiting for the third approval to be enacted. Drawing on the experiences of other countries, the new bankruptcy law tries to carry out the concepts of market economy, eliminate the residual influences of planned economy that existed in the old law, protect lawful rights and interests of creditors and debtors, and maintain the order of socialist market economy. This thesis analyzes and researches on the major and controversial issues that emerged during the legislation of the new bankruptcy law from the aspects such as the principle of the legislation, criteria of bankruptcy, preservation or abolishment of policy-related bankruptcy, protection of the employees  rights and interests of bankrupt enterprises, the creditors  committee system, the trustee system, reorganization system to prevent bankruptcy, and the legal obligations of bankrupt, and so on. It also gives a comprehensive introduction to the innovation and modification of the new bankruptcy law.

The world has changed dramatically over the years, and being two of the world s largest and most populous developing countries, India and China should remain in close touch on issues concerning developing nations. Today s challenges to maritime security increasingly comprise more non-traditional threats, such as terrorist acts against shipping, trafficking in weapons of mass destruction, piracy and armed robbery at sea, illicit transportation in narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances and nuclear substances, and smuggling of people and arms. It is therefore important to intensify cooperation at all levels to address threats to maritime security and safety in a comprehensive manner through bilateral and multilateral instruments and mechanisms aimed at monitoring, preventing and responding to such threats.

With regard to rural land ownership, there exist many problems, such as absence of the subject of right, ambiguity of the definition of right quality, and imperfection of the taking system. To perfect the rural land ownership system in China, we should continuously take villagers  groups and villages as the subject of collective ownership and affirm the right of the members of collective organizations. In order to promote the development of the rural economy and realize the value of land, the contractual management right should be deemed as a property right and allowed to be transferred. The transferability of collective land ownership should be gradually established and the process of taking should be further normalized. Meanwhile, the farmers must receive sufficient compensation. The house site usage right is a special form of right of usufruct. To follow the principle that property should be made best use of, the house site usage right should also be transferable.