In 2008 the Supreme People's Court (SPC) has promulgated the "Regulations on the Cause of Civil Action". The promulgation of the Regulations has significance in various regards. It clearly signals a new approach of the SPC to systemize and compile the status quo of the Chinese civil law system. With the Regulations the SPC aims to help lower courts and parties of legal actions to correctly apply the law. It further wants to collect accurate statistical information about court decisions and to gather these court decisions. The SPC ultimately intents to build a systematic collection of court decisions, which shall provide the people's courts with a reliable data base for reference in deciding cases in the future. This new approach of the SPC has deep impact on the understanding of the application of law in China as it undoubtedly reminds of the concept of writs in traditional English common law (i.e. types of action). The research compiled in this book is therefore going to the roots of the notion of law in China and to the relationship between claims arising from substantive law and the procedural arrangement to enforce these claims in civil procedure law.

This thought-provoking book explores the functions of charitable foundations in the People's Republic of China. Using both empirical fieldwork and extensive textual analysis, it examines the role of foundations in Chinese society and their relationship with the Chinese government. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, Katja Levy and Knut Benjamin Pissler offer a comprehensive overview of the contemporary legal and political frameworks within which Chinese charitable foundations operate, as well as an assessment of their historical and traditional contexts. They re-evaluate the existing literature on China's civil society, and provide a new, functional perspective on the role of foundations, complementing mainstream civil society and corporatist perspectives. This incisive book will be invaluable reading for scholars researching the third sector in China, as well as practitioners working in this sector. Scholars and students of contemporary Chinese law, politics and society will also find its insights useful.