Criminal Justice in China and Taiwan
Speaker Jerome A. Cohen ( New York University School of Law )
Date: Thursday 12 March 2009, 6:30pm-8:00pm
Venue: Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House, London School of Economics
Chair: Prof Stephan Feuchtwang (Taiwan Research Programme)
Convenors: Dr Fang-Long Shih (Taiwan Research Programme) & Mr Scott
Shurtleff (Asia Research Centre)
All Welcome
Abstract
The impact on China of the global economic crisis is expected to intensify
domestic social and political tensions and increase the government's resort
to informal and formal administrative and criminal sanctions. By late 2008,
popular ferment over "re-education through labor", unfair convictions and
sentencing, capital punishment and related issues--though muted in the
media--had brought criminal justice up for consideration by the country's
most powerful institution, the Communist Party Politburo, and legal
officials are currently debating how best to implement the leadership's
general and sometimes conflicting guidelines. Meanwhile, in Taiwan, the
corruption prosecutions of ex-president Chen Shui-bian, his family and
associates have for the first time focused public attention on detailed
issues of criminal procedure that require a new balancing of the interests
of state, society and suspects in light of the island's democratic
development and concern for human rights. Moreover, a series of
interpretations by Taiwan's Council of Grand Justices has articulated
international standards of due process of law, required the executive and
legislature to confront difficult criminal justice reforms and demonstrated
for the first time that a constitutional court can play an effective role
despite the abiding influences of traditional Chinese political-legal
culture. Professor Cohen will analyze recent criminal justice progress on
both sides of the Taiwan strait and relevant cross-strait interactions and
their implications.
About the Speaker
Jerome A. Cohen is Co-Director of NYU Law School's US-Asia Law Institute and
Adjunct Senior Fellow for Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations. He
formerly served as Associate Dean and Director of East Asian Studies at
Harvard Law School and for two decades practiced international business law
relating to China. He continues to arbitrate Asian commercial disputes and
has taken part in many human rights cases involving China. Cohen has
published many books and articles and is a columnist for the South China
Morning Post (Hong Kong) and China Times (Taiwan).
Interested? Contact Fang-Long Shih below.
Dr Fang-Long Shih
Convenor and Research Fellow
Taiwan Research Programme
Asia Research Centre
London School of Economics
Houghton Street, London WC 2A 2AE
+44 (0) 20 7955 6439
http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/taiwanProgramme/
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