30th Anniversary of the Shanghai Winter School
2024-02-21 17:30 - 19:30 (Australia/Sydney) | New Law Building (F10)
Celebrate the 30th Anniversary of the Shanghai Winter School
In-person event
Join us for a special reception hosted by the University of Sydney Law SchoolÂ Centre for Asian and Pacific Law, commemorating three decades of theÂ Shanghai Winter SchoolÂ program. We extend a warm invitation to our esteemed staff, students, alumni, and anyone passionate about Asian and Pacific Law to be part of this joyous occasion.
This event offers a unique opportunity to connect with renowned scholars and practitioners in various legal fields, particularly business compliance in the Asia Pacific region.
Chair:Â Dr. Jie (Jeanne) Huang, Co-director, Centre for Asian and Pacific Law of the University of Sydney
Speakers:

Dean and Professor Simon Bronitt, University of Sydney Law School
Vice President and Professor Peili Ying, East China University of Political Science and Law
Professor Vivienne Bath, University of Sydney Law School
Professor Bing Ling, University of Sydney Law School

This event is being held in conjunction with the Business Compliance in International Commercial Transactions in Asia Pacific Conference. Visit this page for further details and registration.
Wednesday 21 February 2024
Time:Â 5:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Venue:Â New Law Building (F10), University of Sydney, Eastern Avenue, Camperdown campus

Catering and beverages will be provided to enhance your experience.
Let’s come together to reminisce, network, and celebrate the rich legacy of the Shanghai Winter School. We look forward to your presence at this memorable reception!
This conference is hosted by the Centre for Asian and Pacific Law at Sydney Law School and the China Studies Centre at the University of Sydney.

China as a Development Model for the Global South: Opportunities and Limits
2024-02-22 13:00 - 14:00 | Common Room, Level 4, Sydney Law School
China as a Development Model for the Global South: Opportunities and Limits

In-person event
With its remarkable economic success, China could be regarded by countries in the Global South as presenting a development model that is easier to emulate than that of Western developed countries. In this paper, we examine to what extent the Chinese model, which China calls â€œSocialism with Chinese Characteristics,â€ could be regarded as a universal truth for the Global South. We start with two key features of the Chinese model: its export-oriented growth model, which reversed its import-substitution model that communist China practiced in the first 30 years under Mao, and can still be found in many developing countries; and its extensive use of industrial policy that relies heavily on state-owned enterprises and government subsidies, in contrast to the more market-oriented model in Western countries.
In addition, we discuss two new areas of development that illustrate the complexity and adaptability of China’s heterodox approach to development: the phenomenal growth of its e-commerce sector, despite its longstanding censorship regime; and its sustainable development policies, as illustrated with its recent experience in climate adaptation and energy transition. We conclude by discussing how the Chinese approach, which combines a variety of seemingly irreconcilable approaches, reflects another major feature: experimental pragmatism, and what lessons it might offer to countries in the Global South.
Speaker

Professor Henry Gao,Â Singapore Management University

Chair
David S G Goodman is Director of the China Studies Centre, University of Sydney, where he is Professor of Chinese Politics. He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia. Recent publications include: Local Governance in China: Structures, variations, and innovations Elgar 2023 (with Ceren Ergenc); Class and the Communist Party of China, 1921-2021 (2 Vols) (with Marc Blecher, Yingjie Guo, Jean-Louis Rocca, Tony Saich, and Beibei Tang) Routledge, 2022.
Thursday 22 February
Time:Â 1-2pm
CPD Points: 1
Venue:Â Common Room, Level 4, New Law Building (F10)

This event is proudly co-presented by the Centre for Asian and Pacific LawÂ and the China Studies Centre at the University of Sydney.

Responding to repression and strengthening human rights systems | In conversation with Human Rights Watch's Tirana Hassan
2024-04-12 12:30 - 14:00 | Common Room, Level 4, Sydney Law School
Responding to Repression and Strengthening Human Rights Systems | In conversation with Human Rights Watch’s Tirana Hassan
In-person event
The last few years have seen extensive human rights suppression and wartime atrocities. Selective government outrage and transactional diplomacy has carried profound costs for the rights of those not in on the deal.Â The drivers of these human rights crises and their consequences often transcend borders and cannot be solved by governments acting alone. Understanding and responding to these threats needs to be rooted in universal principles of international human rights and the rule of law. These ideas built on shared human histories agreed upon by nations across all regions 75 years ago in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the basis for all contemporary human rights conventions and treaties.
This foundation is needed now more than ever. But this very system we rely on to protect the human rights of people everywhere is under threat. Every time a government overlooks or rejects these universal and globally accepted principles, someone pays a price – in freedoms and liberties, in their health or livelihood, and at times their lives. Australia grapples with the far-reaching arm of transnational repression while at the same time it chooses to sacrifice human rights in the name of military alliances, enabling autocrats, particularly across the Southeast Asia region, to erode the independence of key institutions vital for protecting human rights.
These topics will be traversed in a conversation between Human Rights Watch’s Executive Director Tirana Hassan, and the University of Sydney’s Ben Saul.
About the speakers:
Tirana Hassan is Executive Director at Human Rights Watch, one of the world’s leading international human rights organizations, which operates in more than 90 countries and has over 500 staff members.
Tirana specializes in human rights protection in conflicts and crises. Prior to becoming Human Rights Watch’s Executive Director, Tirana served as director of Amnesty International’s Crisis Response Program and served on the organization’s interim executive team. Between 2010-2015, Tirana worked as a senior researcher in Human Rights Watch’s Emergencies Division. She has worked with various non-governmental organizations including MÃ©decins Sans FrontiÃ¨res (MSF), the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and Save the Children. Tirana was a founding member of a refugee legal serviceÂ in Australia in the early 2000s.
She has carried out and lead teams of investigations in the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia, as well as East and West Africa. She has authored reports and op-eds for major publications worldwide.
Tirana graduated with honors degrees in both social work and law in Australia and holds a master’s in international human rights law from Oxford University.
Moderator
Professor Ben Saul is Challis Chair of International Law at The University of Sydney and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms while Countering Terrorism.
Friday 12 April, 12.30-2pm AEDT
Venue: Level 4, Common Room, New Law Building (F10), Eastern Avenue, Camperdown campus
CPD Points:Â 1.5
This event is proudly presented by the Sydney Centre for International LawÂ at The University of Sydney Law School and Human Rights Watch.

Informers Up Close: Stories From Communist Prague
2024-04-30 13:00 - 14:00 | Common Room, Level 4, Sydney Law School
Informers Up Close: Stories From Communist Prague
In-person event
Informers are generally reviled. After all, â€˜snitches get stitches’. Informers who report to repressive regimes are particularly disdained. While informers may themselves be victims enlisted by the state, their actions cause other individuals to suffer significant harm. Informers, then, are central to the proliferation of endemic human rights abuses. Yet, little is known about exactly why ordinary people end up informing onâ€”at times betrayingâ€”other people to state authorities. Through a case study of Communist Czechoslovakia (1945-1989) that draws from secret police archives, oral histories, and a broad gamut of secondary sources, this book unearths what fuels informers to speak to the secret police in repressive times and considers how transitional justice should approach informers once repression ends.
This bookÂ – co-authored with Barbora HolÃ¡ — unravels the complex drivers behind informing and the dynamics of societal reactions to informing. It explores the agency of both informers and secret police officers. By presenting informers up close, and the relationships between informers and secret police officers in high resolution, this book centers the role of emotions in informer motivations and underscores the value of dignity and reconciliation in transitional reconstruction. This book also leverages research from informing in repressive states to better understand informing in so-called liberal democratic states, which, after all, also rely on informers to maintain law and preserve order.
About the author:
Mark A. Drumbl is the Class of 1975 Alumni Professor and Director, Transnational Law Institute, at Washington and Lee University. He has held visiting appointments and has taught intensive courses at law schools world-wide, including Queen’s University Belfast, Oxford University (University College), UniversitÃ© de Paris II (PanthÃ©on-Assas), Free University of Amsterdam, University of Melbourne, and John Cabot University in Rome. His work has been relied upon by courts; he has served as defense lawyer in genocide trials; and has been an expert in litigation including on international terrorism, with the United Nations in matters involving child soldiers, and the drafting of a global convention to criminalize racist hate speech. Books includeÂ Atrocity, Punishment, and International LawÂ (CUP, 2007),Â Reimagining Child Soldiers in International Law and PolicyÂ (OUP, 2012), andÂ Informers Up Close: Stories from Communist PragueÂ (OUP 2024, with Barbora HolÃ¡); and co-edited volumesÂ Research Handbook of Child SoldiersÂ (Elgar 2019, with Jastine Barrett);Â Sights, Sounds, and Sensibilities of Atrocity ProsecutionsÂ (Brill, 2024, with Caroline Fournet), andÂ Children and ViolenceÂ (Routledge 2024, with Christelle Molima, Mohamed Kamara et al).

Tuesday 30 April, 1-2pm AEST
Venue: Level 4, Common Room, New Law Building (F10), Eastern Avenue, Camperdown campus
CPD Points: 1
This event is proudly presented by the Sydney Centre for International LawÂ at The University of Sydney Law School.

How Canada Chose Exile: The decision to banish Japanese Canadians, 1946
2024-05-03 13:00 - 14:00 | Common Room, Level 4, Sydney Law School
How Canada Chose Exile: The decision to banish Japanese Canadians, 1946
This event is proudly co-presented by the University of Sydney Law School and Discipline of History.
In-person event

As the end of the Second World War drew into view, federal officials in Canada faced a policy problem of their own creation. They had displaced over 22,000 people of Japanese descent from their Pacific Coast communities and dispossessed them of their homes. With the scale of Nazi crimes in Europe increasingly known, mass internment of people on the basis of race had become unsustainable. Yet, many remained convinced that Japanese Canadians were â€œunassimilableâ€ in Canadian society on the basis of race. To resolve the problem of internment, Canadian officials devised a new harm, seeking to banish to Japan as many as possible so that the diminished number left behind could be allowed to live freely. This presentation explores Canada’s tangled path to exile amidst the dramatic shifts and stubborn continuities of the close of the Second World War. Seeking to situate Canada’s exile within a global history of the unmixing of peoples in the 1940s, the paper will close in reflection on Australia’s own expulsion of people of Japanese descent in the same era.
About the author:
Jordan Stanger-Ross is Professor of History at the University of Victoria, British Columbia. His past publications include Landscapes of Injustice: A New Perspective on the Internment and Dispossession of Japanese Canadians (2020) which received the John T. Saywell Prize in Canadian Constitutional Legal History.

Friday 3 May, 1-2pm AEST
Venue: Level 4, Common Room, New Law Building (F10), Eastern Avenue, Camperdown campus
CPD Points: 1
This event is proudly co-presented by the University of Sydney Law School and Discipline of History.

How China governs Big Tech and regulates artificial intelligence
2024-05-06 13:00 - 14:00 | Common Room, Level 4, Sydney Law School
How China governs Big Tech and regulates artificial intelligence

In-person event
China has long been recognized as a powerhouse in cultivating Big Tech firms that rival those in the United States. However, the Chinese government recently embarked on a massive regulatory crackdown, targeting its largest tech corporations such as Alibaba, Tencent, and Meituan. Â Many Western experts have perceived China’s tech crackdown as the government’s assault on private businesses, causing growing doubts among investors whether Chinese firms are still investable.
In this talk, Professor Zhang will take us beyond the headlines to unravel the complexity of China’s regulatory governance. Drawing insights from her newly released book, High Wire: How China Regulates Big Tech and Governs Its Economy,Â she will introduce the dynamic pyramid model of regulation, a new analytical framework that demystifies Chinese regulatory governance.
Professor Zhang will also apply this model to analyze China’s strategic approach to regulating artificial intelligence and discuss its implications for the global tech rivalry and the prospects for international cooperation. Â Join Professor Zhang as she uncovers how China regulates on the high wire by navigating the intricate balance between innovation, regulation and geopolitical contest.
About the speaker
Angela Zhang is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Hong Kong and Director of the Philip K. H. Wong Center for Chinese Law. Widely recognized as a leading authority on China’s tech regulation, Angela has written extensively on this topic. She is the author of Chinese Antitrust Exceptionalism: How the Rise of China Challenges Global Regulation (Oxford, 2021), which was named one of the Best Political Economy Books of 2021 by ProMarket. Angela’s second book, High Wire: How China Regulates Big Tech and Governs Its EconomyÂ was released by Oxford University Press in March 2024. In fall 2024, Angela will join the University of Southern California as a Professor of Law. For more information, please visit her website at AngelaZhang.net, and follow her on Twitter @AngelaZhangHK.

Monday 6 May
Time:Â 1-2pm
CPD Points: 1
Venue:Â Common Room, Level 4, New Law Building (F10)

This event is proudly presented by the Centre for Asian and Pacific Law and the China Studies Centre at the University of Sydney.

Peace in the Ancient Near East: Insights into the world's first attested peace treaty
2024-05-15 13:00 - 14:00 | Common Room, Level 4, Sydney Law School
Peace in the Ancient Near East: Insights into the world’s first attested peace treaty
In-person event

This seminar gives some background to the first attested peace treaty in world history, between Ramses II of Egypt and Hattusili III of Hatti. This treaty survives in several copies, in two languages (Ancient Egyptian and Akkadian) and in two countries (Egypt and Turkey). This seminar will explain some of the provisions of the treaty and also examine some of the treaty’s more unusual aspects, for instance, that its formation was not a direct consequence of conflict, and that not all of its articles are bilateral.
About the author:
Dr Camilla Di Biase-Dyson
A Sydneysider with a passion for Ancient Egypt since childhood, Dr Camilla Di Biase-Dyson has BA(Hons) and PhD degrees in Ancient History from Macquarie University (2000-2008). She moved to Berlin to conduct postdoctoral research in Egyptology and linguistics, first as a Fellow of the Excellence Cluster ‘Topoi: The Formation and Transformation of Space and Knowledge in Ancient Civilizations’ (2009-2010) and then with the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (2010-2012). Following this, she was Junior Professor for Egyptology at the Georg-August University in GÃ¶ttingen, Germany (2012-2019), then a Research Fellow at the University of Vienna (2019-2020). In April 2020sheI moved back to Sydney to take up a Lectureship in Egyptology at Macquarie University.

Wednesday 15 May, 1-2pm AEST
Venue: Level 4, Common Room, New Law Building (F10), Eastern Avenue, Camperdown campus
CPD Points: 1
This event is proudly presented by the Sydney Centre for International Law at the University of Sydney Law School

Navigating China's regulatory approach to generative artificial intelligence
2024-05-17 13:00 - 14:00 | Common Room, Level 4, Sydney Law School
Navigating China’s regulatory approach to generative artificial intelligence
In-person event
In-person event
The rapid development and application of generative artificial intelligence (AI) systems have raised growing concerns of their potential risks at a global level. In July 2023, Chinese regulators passed the Interim Measures for the Management of Generative AI Services (the Measures). The Measures target various risks associated with this technology, particularly around content safety and security. At the same time, a key policy objective of Beijing is to promote further growth of the industry. The unresolved tensions between such policy objectives are reflected in the Measures’ provisions relating to obligations on generative AI service providers, which present significant challenges in the implementation of the regulation. As Beijing looks to developing a comprehensive legal framework for AI, legislators will need to further clarify and balance the liability of different regulated actors in a range of contexts.
About the speaker
Mimi Zou is Professor of Law and Head of School of the School of Private and Commercial Law, UNSW Sydney. Her research focuses on the impact of new technologies such as AI and blockchain on private and commercial law, and the regulation of new technologies from comparative and international perspectives. Professor Zou has spent most of her academic career in the UK and Hong Kong, and have held senior positions at top universities including a Chair in Commercial Law at the University of Exeter and the first-ever Fellowship in Chinese Law at the University of Oxford.
Friday 17 May
Time: 1-2pm
CPD Points: 1
Venue: Common Room, Level 4, New Law Building (F10)
This event is proudly presented by the Centre for Asian and Pacific Law at Sydney Law School and the Chinese Studies Centre at the University of Sydney.

Book launch: Judicial Dysfunction in Indonesia
2024-07-15 18:00 - 19:30 | Common Room, Level 4, Sydney Law School
Book launch: Judicial Dysfunction in Indonesia
An analysis of corruption in Indonesia’s courts.

In-person event

The University of Sydney Law School is delighted to invite you to the launch of Judicial Dysfunction in Indonesia by Professor Simon Butt, a revealing book that examines the deep-rooted issues in Indonesia’s judicial system.
Tracing problems back to the authoritarian regimes of Presidents Soekarno and Soeharto, the book explains how the judiciary nearly collapsed by the late 1990s. Despite reforms aimed at improving judicial independence, corruption and inefficiency persist, with judges often acting without accountability.
This essential work offers an empirical analysis of corruption mechanisms, including how bribes are negotiated and paid. It also addresses the impact of public pressure on judicial independence and the prevalence of unsafe convictions.
The book will be launched by Professor Tim Lindsey, University of Melbourne Law School, and Dr Laode Syarif, Executive Director at The Partnership for Governance Reform in Indonesia, and moderated by Lydia Santoso of the Australia Indonesia Business Council.
The book will be available for purchase on the evening.
Find out more about the book and order it online here.

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Monday 15 July 2024
Time: 6-7.30pm (including a cocktail reception)
Venue: Common Room, Level 4, New Law Building (F10), Eastern Avenue, Camperdown campus
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About the author
Simon Butt is Professor of Indonesian Law at the University of Sydney Law School, where he teaches Indonesian law and Private International Law. Fluent in Indonesian, and having spent years in Indonesia, he has written widely on Indonesian law, including Corruption and Law in Indonesia (2012), The Constitutional Court and Democracy in Indonesia (2015), and co-authored The Constitution of Indonesia: A Contextual Analysis (2012) and Indonesian Law (2018) with Tim Lindsey.
This event is presented by the University of Sydney Law School.

The Past, Present, and Future of the Palestine Investigation
2024-07-17 13:00 - 14:00 | Common Room, Level 4, Sydney Law School
The Past, Present, and Future of the Palestine Investigation
In-person event

On May 20th, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan KC, announced that his Office had applied for arrest warrants against three senior Hamas leaders and two high-ranking Israeli government officials. This talk, which is based on Professor Kevin Jon Heller’s role as Special Adviser on War Crimes to the Prosecutor, will discuss the past, present, and future of the investigation in Palestine. He will explain what a Special Adviser does, provide a history of the Palestine investigation, discuss the arrest-warrant applications, and offer a few thoughts for what the future might hold for the warrants and the investigation more generally.
About the author:
Kevin Jon HellerÂ is Professor of International Law and Security at the University of Copenhagen’s Centre for Military Studies and Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires. He is an Academic Member of Doughty Street Chambers in London and currently serves as Special Advisor to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court on War Crimes.
Prof. Heller’s books includeÂ The Nuremberg Military Tribunals and the Origins of International Criminal LawÂ (OUP, 2011) and four co-edited volumes:Â The Handbook of Comparative Criminal LawÂ (Stanford, 2010),Â The Hidden Histories of War Crimes TrialsÂ (OUP, 2013), theÂ Oxford Handbook of International Criminal LawÂ (OUP, 2018), andÂ Contingency in International Law: On the Possibility of Different Legal HistoriesÂ (OUP, 2021). He is currently co-writing a book with Samuel Moyn (Yale) provisionally entitledÂ The Vietnam War and International Law. He is also Editor-in-Chief of the international-law blogÂ Opinio Juris, where he has blogged for more than 17 years.
Prof. Heller has been involved in the practice of international law throughout his career, most notably acting as one of Radovan Karadzic’s formally-appointed legal associates at the ICTY; serving as the plaintiffs’ sole expert witness inÂ Salim v Mitchell, a successful Alien Tort Statute case against the psychologists who designed and administered the CIA’s torture program; functioning as UNITAD’s Special Expert for International Criminal and Humanitarian Law; and acting as legal advisor to and expert witness for Ramzi bin al-Shibh, one of the defendants in the 9/11 trial at Guantanamo Bay.

Wednesday 17 July, 1-2pm AEST
Venue: Level 4, Common Room, New Law Building (F10), Eastern Avenue, Camperdown campus
CPD Points: 1
This event is proudly presented by the Sydney Centre for International Law at the University of Sydney Law School

Corruption and Investment Arbitration in Asia: New Frontiers
2024-08-01 17:00 - 19:00 | New Law Building (F10)
Corruption and Investment Arbitration in Asia: New Frontiers
In-person event

This seminar hosted by the University of Sydney Law School will involve a local re-launch of a new book on Corruption and Illegality in Asian Investment Arbitration (Teramura, Nottage and Jetin eds, published in Open Access in Springer’s Asia in Transition series in April 2024) and discussion of some new research.
Participants include:

Opening: Professor Simon Bronitt (University of Sydney)
Chair and re-launch: Hon Wayne Martin AC KC (Francis Burt Chambers, former Chief Justice of Western Australia)
Book overview and key findings: Assistant Professor Nobumichi Teramura (Universiti Brunei Darussalam)
New pan-Asian empirical study: Professor Luke Nottage (University of Sydney), with Teramura
China focus: Professor Vivienne Bath and Dr Tianqi Gu (University of Sydney)
Indonesia focus: Professor Simon Butt (University of Sydney) and Antony Crockett, Herbert Smith Freehills (Hong Kong).
Commentator: Dr Amokura Kawharu (President, New Zealand Law Commission)

Click here for more information.

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Thursday 1 August 2024
Time: 5-7pm (including a cocktail reception)
Venue: Sydney Law School, Law Lounge, level 1, New Law Building (F10A), Eastern Avenue, Camperdown campusÂ
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This event is presented by the Centre for Asian and Pacific Law at the University of Sydney Law School and the Australian Network for Japanese Law.

The proliferation of Chinese surveillance tools overseas: sovereignty, resistance, and debt
2024-08-08 11:30 - 12:30 | Law Lounge, Level 1
The proliferation of Chinese surveillance tools overseas: sovereignty, resistance, and debt
In-person event

The heightened public and scholarly attention to Africa-China relations is chiefly inspired by the growing trade, investment, and aid between Beijing and the Global South. More specifically, the research on digital surveillance in Africa focuses largely on the wide distribution of Chinese technology, drawing attention to the fact that regime type is a poor predictor of the purchase and use of that technology.
Questions concerning how digital technologies work, their high local demand, and how they alter or do not alter state capacity have received far less study. More importantly, though, the literature that has already been written ignores an important paradox: if increased digital surveillance is wanted to support government authority because of its ability to police and administer, it may also work against state sovereignty.
In the latter regard, digital surveillance tools are embedded within processes that result in the privatization of the state. The outsourcing of its functions to Chinese tech giants, like Huawei, has transformed the government, done within the context of a supposedly weak African state that seeks to ameliorate its inefficiencies, in part, into a holding company in the business of franchising out many operations, including police services, and hence much of its sovereignty. This is all done within the context of supposedly weak postcolonial states that seek to improve their states’ practical and technical inefficiencies.
In this presentation, we explore how postcolonial states seek to use scientific knowledge and technology to scale state capacities. Accordingly, it interrogates claims around China’s growing technological footprint, the role of those technologies in emergent forms of state-corporate venture, the nature of African developmental states, and challenges to local data privacy.
This is the first event in the Centre for Asian and Pacific Law HDR/ECR series.
About the speaker
Bulelani Jili is a Meta Research PhD fellow at Harvard University. His research interests include ICT development, Africa-China relations, cybersecurity, post-colonial thought, and privacy law. He is also a visiting fellow at Yale Law School, a cybersecurity fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, a scholar-in-residence at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a visiting fellow at Hong Kong University Law, a fellow at the Atlantic Council, and a research associate at Oxford University.
Commentator: Jose-Miguel Bello Villarino, Sydney Law School
Moderator: Jie (Jeanne) Huang, Sydney Law School
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Thursday 8 August, 2024
Time: 11.30-12.30pm
Venue: Law Lounge, Level 1, New Law Building, Eastern Avenue, University of Sydney, Camperdown campus

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CPD Points = 1 point
This event is co-sponsored by the China Studies Centre and the Centre for Asian and Pacific Law.

A new explanation of China's patenting phenomenon with a focus on the patenting of traditional medical knowledge
2024-09-02 01:00 - 14:00 | Common Room, Level 4, Sydney Law School
A new explanation of China’s patenting phenomenon with a focus on the patenting of traditional medical knowledge
In-person event

This seminar will present how Dr Ben Hopper’s thesis explains why people are getting patents over traditional medical knowledge in a way that differs from (and adds to) the usual explanations for China’s â€œpatent boomâ€. These â€œusual (explanatory) suspectsâ€ are based on State interference (patenting subsidies, etc.), level of innovation and level of human capital. It will draw on his original fieldwork data comprising a survey of the approaches to patenting of 53 mostly ethnic minority traditional medical practitioners in China’s southwestern, relatively poor and isolated province of Guizhou. The analysis of those data involved a mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods. The seminar will conclude that a key (and, thus far, missing) ingredient in explaining patenting activity in China is the individual’s extent of marketisation, with more marketised individuals having a statistically significant higher propensity to get patents and to obey patent laws.

This event is part of the PhD/ECR presentation series hosted by the Centre for Asian and Pacific Law.

About the speaker
Dr Ben HopperÂ is a lecturer at Melbourne Law School. He teaches and researches in the areas of intellectual property, traditional knowledge, technology law, civil procedure, and legal ethics. He examines doctrinal developments in these areas of law, with a focus on intellectual property law. His research uses empirical methods to illuminate the â€œliving lawâ€, including people’s lived experiences of the law, and legal subjectivity. He draws on both legal theory and broader social theory to explain the results of his empirical research.
Ben’s current research focus is China, the locus of his PhD on patenting of traditional knowledge, and where he has completed projects on geographical indications in the tea industry and internal migration in Xinjiang. He has a J.D., B.A. (Hons), and D-Lang (German) from the University of Melbourne, and an LL.M. from Harvard University.
Commentator: Dr Olugbenga OlatunjiÂ (University of Sydney Law School)
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Monday 2 September, 2024
Time:Â 1-2pm
Venue: Common Room, Level 4, New Law Building (F10), Eastern Avenue, University of Sydney, Camperdown campus
CPD Points: 1 point
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This event is co-sponsored byÂ theÂ Centre for Asian and Pacific LawÂ and theÂ Ross Parsons Centre.

CANCELLED A new era" of Chinese law: The theoretical origins of Xi Jinping Legal Thought
2024-09-13 12:00 - 13:00 | Common Room, Level 4, Sydney Law School
#N/A

Book launch | Research Methods in Private International Law: Educating the Next Generation of Conflicts Lawyers
2024-09-23 18:00 - 19:30
Book launch | Research Methods in Private International Law: Educating the Next Generation of Conflicts LawyersOnline event

Research Methods in Private International Law: A Handbook on Regulation, Research, and Teaching

This incisive research handbook provides valuable insights into the various methodological approaches to Private International Law from regulatory and educational perspectives. It comprehensively unpacks central themes in the field including international jurisdiction, recognition and enforcement, and scrupulously analyses core debates whilst addressing legislative and policy issues.

In collaboration with the editors Xandra Kramer (Erasmus School of Law/Utrecht University) and Laura Carballo PiÃ±eiro (University of Vigo), this online book launch will feature contributions from eminent speakers, focusing on global insights in teaching Private International Law.

Speakers and discussion topics

Laura Carballo PiÃ±eiro/Xandra Kramer

Methods in private international law are not only important for the purpose of regulation and research, but also for societal and educational purposes. To continue developing and fulfil its regulatory and societal functions, private international law requires the nurturing of strong scholarship and thus research on creating a suitable learning environment for it to be diversified. Highlighting perspectives from university teaching in different countries, laypersons, colonialism, and feminism enriches the development of private international law and increases awareness of its role as a global governance tool.

Veronica RuizÂ Abou-Nigm

Private international law matters for everybody. Why then is it perceived to be so marginal? We identify three distorted perceptions: irrelevance, impenetrability, and indifference. Private international law is considered to be irrelevant, because relevant decisions are taken in substantive law. It is considered impenetrable because many of its doctrines appear strange and general intuition offers little guidance towards the correct solution. And it seems indifferent to questions of values and questions of political economy. We address each of these perceptions in turn. We demonstrate that private international law, far from being irrelevant, is an indispensable part of private law. Whoever wants to make full use of private law must think of private international law as well. We suggest that private international law can seem impenetrable because it requires a whole different way of thinking: thinking between legal orders. Lawyers and non-lawyers alike are used to thinking within one order that is relatively coherent. That thinking is of little help in resolving issues that take place in-between such coherent orders. And we describe what we view as the ethical minimum of private international law: responsivity, cultural humility, and intercultural competence. These attitudes, which are not confined to the law, raise the possibility that private international law could teach something of relevance to everyone beyond its own disciplinary boundaries. Putting these insights in practice can, we hope, be transformative towards Private International Law for Everyone.

Ramani Garimella

The human catastrophe witnessed in Bhopal, India, remains pertinent for the domain of private international law. The US court ruled against the forum’s jurisdiction as being forum non conveniens and return it for the jurisdiction of India’s courts. Adherence to a formalist/positivist approach that believed in the public-private distinction allowed the court to avoid a discussion on the immense public interests that were involved in the suit. Such approach dwarfed the nature and magnitude of loss for the victims and demonstrated how far the ideas of territoriality and jurisdiction moved away from the notion of â€˜unified international law’. The author suggests revisiting this distinction from a methodological perspective – historicity – to understand the reasons for the survival of this distinction, especially in the third world countries as a vestige of the colonial law. This research, exemplifying through India, explores the zealous adherence to the colonial law on the rules of private international law including the methodology of the domain, and the absence of any significant local contribution to the domain. The research argues that the distinction emerged as an expression of the positivist international law (often non-representative/non-participative) that had helped further the legitimation of colonialism. The research suggests a historicity-based methodology for identifying the domain’s content so as to ensure a justice-centric regime that takes note of the rights of the victims of human error.

Chukwama Okoli/Abubakri Yekini

Many African countries aim to capitalise on globalization to enhance cross-border trade and commerce. This necessitates an effective private international law framework to resolve frictions that inherent in cross-border transactions. While scholarly work often focuses on PIL’s role in facilitating cross-border trade, the teaching of PIL and the preparedness of budding lawyers to tackle modern issues have been largely overlooked. This chapter addresses this gap by examining the effectiveness of PIL education in Nigeria. Through empirical research involving questionnaires administered to 75 undergraduate students from seven universities, the study provides insights into the current curriculum and teaching methodologies. The findings suggest that existing approaches are inadequate for producing transnational lawyers equipped with the necessary hands-on skills. The paper recommends a multi-method teaching approach, with a strong emphasis on clinical education and comparative law.

Aukje van Hoek

An inventory of (online) course descriptions of courses in private international law at different European universities show a diversity in approaches to teaching PIL. Which choices are made when developing a specific course, will depend on the staff teaching the course and the wider â€˜Umfeld’ in which the course is situated. Three approaches will be discussed and put in context.

Moderator: Dr.Â Jie (Jeanne) Huang, Co-chair of ASIL PIL Interest Group and Associate Professor at the University of Sydney Law School.

About the book
Research Methods in Private International Law- A Handbook on Regulation, Research and Teaching

Edited byÂ Xandra Kramer, Professor of Private Law, Erasmus School of Law, Erasmus University Rotterdam and Professor of Private International Law, Utrecht University, the Netherlands andÂ Laura Carballo PiÃ±eiro, Professor of Private International Law, Universidade de Vigo, Spain.

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Monday 23 September 2024
Time: 6pm-7.30pm AEST
You will receive Zoom details closer to the date of the webinar.
CPD points = 1.5

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This event is jointly presented by the American Society of International Law Private International Law Interest Group and the University of Sydney Law School.
