This conversation is co-sponsored by Rutgers Global-China Office. It is open to public, but registration is required. Click here to register.

Description:

In light of the dramatic development in the legal cases involving Meng Wanzhou, Huawei's CFO, and two Canadians, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, in recent days, RCCS has invited two prominent legal scholars, Taisu Zhang (Yale Law School) and Margaret Lewis (Seton Hall Law School), to engage in a wide-ranging conversation about the complicated cases. These two scholars both have had extensive experience in the American judicial system and unique perspectives on the legal aspects of US-China relationships.

Bios:

Taisu Zhang is a Professor of Law at Yale Law School and works on comparative legal and economic history, private law theory, and contemporary Chinese law and politics. His first book, The Laws and Economics of Confucianism: Kinship and Property in Pre-Industrial China and England was published by Cambridge University Press, and received the 2018 Presidents Award from the Social Science History Association and the 2018 Gaddis Smith Book Prize from the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies. This is the first entry in a planned trilogy of books on the institutional and cultural origins of early modern economic divergence. The second entry, The Ideological Foundations of the Qing Fiscal State, is under contract with Cambridge University Press. In addition, Zhang has published articles, essays, and book chapters on a wide array of topics, winning awards from several academic organizations, and is a regular commentator on Chinese law, society, and politics in media outlets.

Margaret Lewis is a professor at Seton Hall Law School. Her research focuses on law in China and Taiwan with an emphasis on criminal justice and human rights. She has been a Fulbright Senior Scholar at National Taiwan University, a visiting professor at Academia Sinica, a Public Intellectuals Program Fellow with the National Committee on United States-China Relations, and a delegate to the US-Japan Foundation's US-Japan Leadership Program. She is a Member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Her publications have appeared in a number of academic journals including the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, NYU Journal of International Law and Politics, Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, and Virginia Journal of International Law. Lewis has participated in the State Department’s Legal Experts Dialogue with China, has testified before the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, and is a consultant to the Ford Foundation.

(background photo courtesy of dwnews.com)