Event

This is a particularly dynamic moment for Chinese administrative law.  The long-term reformist effort to secure passage of a comprehensive administrative procedure law – a law, roughly akin to the U.S. Administrative Procedure Act, that would provide baseline standards for all types of Chinese agency action – appears to be gaining traction as a growing number of sub-national localities adopt regulations modeled upon the proposed national legislation.  The scheduled upcoming revision of the two basic laws that define procedures for citizens to appeal unlawful government action has generated a vibrant scholarly discourse, and may lead to strengthening of these formal legal processes in the face of some enduring challenges.  Substantive regulatory dilemmas – some familiar in countries like the United States, and others more specific to China – have provoked a deepening sense of crisis that creates new openings for innovations in regulation. 

Featuring presentations by an outstanding and diverse group of Chinese administrative law scholars, specially invited to visit the United States by the American Bar Association’s Section of Administrative Law & Regulatory Practice, and with commentary from distinguished U.S. scholars of administrative law and Chinese law, this symposium will take stock of the development of Chinese administrative law over the past thirty years, and explore possibilities for reform today.  Topics to be addressed include agency decision-making procedures, approaches to regulation, and external oversight in Chinese administrative law and practice.  A central theme for discussion will be the degree to which traditional U.S. administrative law values such as transparency, public participation, and judicial review, and newer regulatory approaches such as cost-benefit and risk-based analysis, have informed Chinese administrative law thus far and might help to shape its future.

This symposium hosted by the University of Pennsylvania Law School is co-sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for the Study of Contemporary China and Center for East Asian Studies, the Penn Program on Regulation, and the Cardozo Law School’s Floersheimer Center for Constitutional Democracy, in conjunction with the American Bar Association’s Section of Administrative Law & Regulatory Practice and with financial support from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

NOTE CLE Credit Available: This program has been approved for 7.0 hours of substantive law credits for Pennsylvania lawyers. CLE credit may be available in other jurisdictions as well.  Attendees seeking CLE credits should bring payment of $70 cash or check payable to "The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania."