This fascinating book explores how issues of law and justice are being re-defined by China's obsession with 'social stability' and how this might impact upon claims to legitimacy that the Party-state advances. A first-rate team of experts put their lens on a wide range of important areas including trial and settlement practices, administrative law, criminal justice, environmental pollution, labor relations, land ownership, policing and welfare. Each contribution offers key insights into how we should understand the effects of China s response to increasing social discord.' - Mike McConville, The Chinese University of Hong KongThe Politics of Law and Stability in China examines the nexus between social stability and the law in contemporary China. It explores the impact of Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) rationales for social stability on legal reforms, criminal justice operations and handling of disputes and social unrest inside and outside China's justice agencies. The book presents an extensive investigation into the conceptual and empirical approaches by the Party-state to the management of Chinese citizen complaint and unrest. It explores how the Party-state responds to what it sees as potentially de-stabilizing social action such as public protest, discord, deviance and criminal behavior. This timely and important study reaches across a broad variety of areas within the legal sphere, including substantive criminal law and criminal procedure law reform, labour law, environment and land disputes, policing and surveillance, and anti-corruption drives. The central thread running through all the chapters concerns how the imperative of social stability has underpinned key Party-state approaches to social management and responses to crime, legal disputes and social unrest across the last decade in China. This book will appeal to lawyers, political science scholars and social scientists in the area of China studies. Scholars generally interested in Chinese criminal law and criminal law procedures will also find much in this book that will be of interest to them. Contributors: S. Biddulph, D. Peng, X. He, F. Hualing, G. Zhiyuan, E. Nesossi, M. Palmer, F. Sapio, M. S. Tanner, S. Trevaskes, B. van Rooij, Z. Wanhong

China s economic reforms have brought the country both major international clout and widespread domestic prosperity. At the same time, the reforms have led to significant social upheaval, particularly manifest in labour relations. Each year, several thousand disputes break out over working conditions, many of them violent, and the Chinese state has responded with both legal and political strategies.

This book investigates how Chinese governments have used law, and other forms of regulation, to govern working conditions and combat labour disputes. Starting from the early years of the Republican period, the book traces the evolution of the law of work in modern China right up to the reforms of the present day. It considers the structure of Chinese work law, drawing on both Chinese and Western scholarship to provide new insights into its unique features and assess where the law is innovative and where it is stagnant and unresponsive. The authors explore the various legal and extra-legal techniques successive Chinese governments have adopted to enforce work law and the responses of firms, workers and organizations to these practices.

Using a new conceptual framework, the author examines the processes of legal reform in post-socialist countries such as China. Drawing on Bourdieu's concept of the 'field', the increasingly complex and contested processes of legal reform are analysed in relation to police powers. The impact of China's post-1978 legal reforms on police powers is examined through a detailed analysis of three administrative detention powers: detention for education of prostitutes; coercive drug rehabilitation; and re-education through labour. The debate surrounding the abolition in 1996 of detention for investigation (also known as shelter and investigation) is also considered. Despite over 20 years of legal reform, police powers remain poorly defined by law and subject to minimal legal constraint. They continue to be seriously and systematically abused. However, there has been both systematic and occasionally dramatic reform of these powers. This book considers the processes which have made these legal changes possible.

Examining both the theory and practice of human rights in China, this Handbook provides an important analysis of rights in China in comparison to international standards and China's international engagements concerning human rights. A wide range of civil and political, social and economic, and group rights in China are explored from an interdisciplinary perspective. Contributions provide a comprehensive and critical insight to the topic, examining the traditions behind modern human rights in China right up to contemporary issues such as the rise of the Internet and LGBTQ rights that are now at the forefront of attention across the globe. The Handbook also explores human rights in Greater China, and their relationship to rights in mainland China. Each chapter develops arguments surrounding significant issues, together revealing a complex reality where human rights recognition and protections are intertwined with Party-state programs and priorities, modes of governance and the demand for social and political stability. A vital read for international human rights academics and practitioners, this Handbook examines a thorough range of aspects of human rights in China. It would also be a useful read for international relations and Chinese studies scholars, as well as those with a keen interest in modern China. Contributors include: S.C. Angle, H. Aubie, A. Beck, T. Biao, S. Biddulph, A. Brettell, T.C. Chen, J. Chia, S. Cook, M.C. Davis, A. Datt, M. Elfstrom, A. Garwood-Gowers, S. Hallett, J.P. Horsley, F. Huafling, L.A. Jacobs, J. Jue, L. Jun, A. Kent, K. Kinzelbach, M.K. Lewis, W. Muller, O. Naftali, E. Nesossi, E. Pils, P. Potter, J. Rosenzweig, M. Svensson, S. Trevaskes, M. Xia, G. Zhiyuan

The volume presents an extensive investigation into the process of reforms of detention powers in today's China and offers an in-depth analysis of the debates surrounding the reformist attempts. The chapters in this collection demonstrate that legislative and institutional reforms in this area result from political opportunities - openings and tensions at the central institutional levels of political authority - and contingent social and political factors. The book examines legal and institutional reforms to institutions of detention and imprisonment that have occurred since the 1990s, with a particular focus on the 21st century. Its content follows three particular lines of enquiry concerning the issue of deprivation of liberty in contemporary China. The first deals with the academic and theoretical debates on the subject of imprisonment and detention. The related chapters explain the difficulties encountered in this area of research and understandings of the discourses of reform through labour in Western and Chinese scholarship. The second deals with the specific issues of criminal and administrative forms of deprivation of liberty, examining in particular the institutional and legislative dimensions, considering the relationship between reforms and criminal justice policy agendas. The third assesses the meaning of institutional reforms in the context of the changing state-society relationship in contemporary China.

Claims about a pursuit of justice weave through all periods of China's modern history. But what do authorities mean when they refer to 'justice' and do Chinese citizens interpret justice in the same way as their leaders? This book explores how certain ideas about justice have come to be dominant in Chinese polity and society, and how some conceptions of justice have been rendered more powerful and legitimate than others. This book's focus on 'how' justice works incorporates a concern about the processes that lead to the making, un-making and re-making of distinct conceptions of justice. Investigating the processes and frameworks through which certain ideas about justice have come to the political and social forefront in China today, this innovative work explains how these ideas are articulated through spoken performances and written expression by both the party-state and its citizenry.

Claims about a pursuit of justice weave through all periods of China's modern history. But what do authorities mean when they refer to 'justice' and do Chinese citizens interpret justice in the same way as their leaders? This book explores how certain ideas about justice have come to be dominant in Chinese polity and society, and how some conceptions of justice have been rendered more powerful and legitimate than others. This book's focus on 'how' justice works incorporates a concern about the processes that lead to the making, un-making and re-making of distinct conceptions of justice. Investigating the processes and frameworks through which certain ideas about justice have come to the political and social forefront in China today, this innovative work explains how these ideas are articulated through spoken performances and written expression by both the party-state and its citizenry.

Using a conceptual framework, this 2007 book examines the processes of legal reform in post-socialist countries such as China. Drawing on Bourdieu's concept of the 'field', the increasingly complex and contested processes of legal reform are analysed in relation to police powers. The impact of China's post-1978 legal reforms on police powers is examined through a detailed analysis of three administrative detention powers: detention for education of prostitutes; coercive drug rehabilitation; and re-education through labour. The debate surrounding the abolition in 1996 of detention for investigation (also known as shelter and investigation) is also considered. Despite over 20 years of legal reform, police powers remain poorly defined by law and subject to minimal legal constraint. They continue to be seriously and systematically abused. However, there has been both systematic and occasionally dramatic reform of these powers. This book considers the processes which have made these legal changes possible.

With isolationism and protectionism strengthening in response to the forces of globalization, the interrelationship of the national and supranational in shaping good governance norms has become increasingly relevant. Good Governance in Economic Development critically examines the transparency and accountability mechanisms underpinning international trade, finance, and investment regimes, particularly in view of the intensifying influence of China. It also explores the Chinese state's engagement with these norms, shedding light not only on how the principles of transparency, accountability, and public participation are applied within China, but also on the ability of China to affect international rules.

China s economic reforms have brought the country both major international clout and widespread domestic prosperity. At the same time, the reforms have led to significant social upheaval, particularly manifest in labour relations. Each year, several thousand disputes break out over working conditions, many of them violent, and the Chinese state has responded with both legal and political strategies.

This book investigates how Chinese governments have used law, and other forms of regulation, to govern working conditions and combat labour disputes. Starting from the early years of the Republican period, the book traces the evolution of the law of work in modern China right up to the reforms of the present day. It considers the structure of Chinese work law, drawing on both Chinese and Western scholarship to provide new insights into its unique features and assess where the law is innovative and where it is stagnant and unresponsive. The authors explore the various legal and extra-legal techniques successive Chinese governments have adopted to enforce work law and the responses of firms, workers and organizations to these practices."

The volume presents an extensive investigation into the process of reforms of detention powers in today's China and offers an in-depth analysis of the debates surrounding the reformist attempts. The chapters in this collection demonstrate that legislative and institutional reforms in this area result from political opportunities - openings and tensions at the central institutional levels of political authority - and contingent social and political factors. The book examines legal and institutional reforms to institutions of detention and imprisonment that have occurred since the 1990s, with a particular focus on the 21st century. Its content follows three particular lines of enquiry concerning the issue of deprivation of liberty in contemporary China. The first deals with the academic and theoretical debates on the subject of imprisonment and detention. The related chapters explain the difficulties encountered in this area of research and understandings of the discourses of reform through labour in Western and Chinese scholarship. The second deals with the specific issues of criminal and administrative forms of deprivation of liberty, examining in particular the institutional and legislative dimensions, considering the relationship between reforms and criminal justice policy agendas. The third assesses the meaning of institutional reforms in the context of the changing state-society relationship in contemporary China.

With isolationism and protectionism strengthening in response to the forces of globalization, the interrelationship of the national and supranational in shaping good governance norms has become increasingly relevant. Good Governance in Economic Development critically examines the transparency and accountability mechanisms underpinning international trade, finance, and investment regimes, particularly in view of the intensifying influence of China. It also explores the Chinese state's engagement with these norms, shedding light not only on how the principles of transparency, accountability, and public participation are applied within China, but also on the ability of China to affect international rules.