By Tyler Cohen (3L)
On the morning of the first Saturday in February, fifty-five students, practitioners, and other friends braved the cold and, braver still, forfeited the right to a sleep-filled weekend to gather in the Falconer Hall Solarium for the second annual China Law Conference. In both years, the conference has sold out despite adverse weather conditions. Students from the law school and other U of T faculties have seized the opportunity to learn about Chinese law and Canada-China legal relations alongside leading scholars and practitioners in the field.
This year’s conference kicked off with a panel focused on the Hong Kong Basic Law. Professor Susan Henders of York University and Alvin Cheung of the United States-Asia Law Institute (US-ALI) at New York University presented on the cultural and political autonomy of Hong Kong through the late 20th century and the shifting boundaries of the “one country-two systems” framework under which that autonomy has resided since Hong Kong returned to China in 1997.
The Umbrella Revolution movement that began last summer drew global media attention to China’s domestic legal affairs in a way only large-scale protests can. Much of the commentary that followed neglected the long history of both political struggle and political apathy in Hong Kong. Professor Henders provided valuable context, situating the movement within the city’s broader history. Mr. Cheung, drawing on international and domestic Chinese law, argued that the promise made to Hong Kong—that China would be one country, but with two political systems—was slowly but surely being broken.
Professor Jerome Cohen, unfortunately unable to travel, delivered his keynote lecture by video. Professor Cohen is Director of the US-ALI and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and has been at the forefront of Chinese legal studies for over fifty years. He urged students and China-watchers to be mindful of the nature of the task at hand: “Of course, we in the United States and Canada have many problems of our own … [and] the worst kind of comparative law is to compare our theory and China’s practice.”
Though recent commentary has focused on the growing repression under the young Xi Jinping regime, Professor Cohen remains optimistic and called for greater attention on the part of the legal community:
I don’t despair. There has been enormous progress in China since I started. I think we have to ask ourselves—how do we ride out what I hope is a temporary period of considerable repression? … We want to keep the faith. There are many [reformers] who would feel terribly abandoned if we ignored them and said that what happens in China is not of interest to us, or too hopeless for us to become seriously involved.
After lunch, the audience packed the Solarium once more to hear two final panels. First, Professor Margaret Boittin—who will join Osgoode Hall next year—and award-winning author Leta Hong Fincher explored legal issues uniquely affecting women in China.
Professor Boittin discussed the legal regime governing prostitution in the country and shared insights from her fieldwork on efforts to increase HIV-AIDS prevention among sex workers. Ms. Fincher’s presentation on the property regime, how it affects women’s rights in divorce, and the interplay between these and state efforts to have women marry younger clearly raised the most excitement of the day, followed by many questions and rants and rants-that-gradually-became-questions. Her 2014 book, Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China, has garnered international attention and praise.
Finally, Professor Donald Clarke of George Washington University, Mark Kruger of the Bank of Canada, and Robert Wisner, Partner at McMillan LLP, capped off the day with a panel presentation on investment law.
Professor Clarke, who had originally prepared to speak on local government financing, called an audible and presented on China’s rather unexpected new Draft Foreign Investment Law. Robert Wisner’s discussion of the highly controversial Canada-China Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPA) complemented Professor Clarke’s discussion, giving the audience a broad understanding of the current investment framework that Canadian firms face. With Professor Clarke and Mr. Wisner shedding light on national investment law and international investment treaties, Mr. Kruger dug deeper into the economic conditions for investment in his presentation on the Chinese real estate market.
The China Law Conference brings together a rare mix of leading experts in the field, and provides a unique opportunity to learn about a broad range of issues in Chinese law and Canada-China relations. Considering the importance of the FIPA on the one hand and the Umbrella Revolution on the other, as well as Professor Cohen’s call for greater engagement in these issues, perhaps it should not be so unique.
Tyler is President of U of T Law’s China Law Group and he organized the China Law Conference.
