Chinese Justice: Civil Dispute Resolution in Contemporary China

Description

This volume analyzes whether China's thirty years of legal reform have taken root in Chinese society by examining how ordinary citizens are using the legal system in contemporary China. It is an interdisciplinary look at law in action and at legal institutions from the bottom up, that is, beginning with those at the ground level that are using and working in the legal system. It explores the emergent Chinese conception of justice - one that seeks to balance Chinese tradition, socialist legacies and the needs of the global market. Given the political dimension of dispute resolution in creating, settling and changing social norms, this volume contributes to a greater understanding of political and social change in China today and of the process of legal reform generally.

Margaret Y. K. Woo is Professor of Law at Northeastern University School of Law and co-director of the law school's program on Human Rights in the Global Economy. She has written and spoken widely on US procedural justice and the issue of Chinese legal reform. She was formerly a Fellow at the Bunting Institute of Radcliffe College and is a research associate with the East Asian Legal Studies Center of Harvard Law School. Her publications include Litigating in America (2006) and East Asian Law - Universal Norms and Local Cultures (2003). Mary E. Gallagher is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan, where she is also the director of the Center for Chinese Studies. She is also a faculty associate at the Center for Comparative Political Studies at the Institute for Social Research. Gallagher is the author of Contagious Capitalism: Globalization and the Politics of Labor in China (2005) and the forthcoming The Rule of Law in China: If They Build It, Who Will Come? which was funded by the Fulbright Association and the National Science Foundation.

'Complementing the burgeoning scholarship on Chinese law and legal institutions, Woo and Gallagher's book takes on the formidable task of presenting an interdisciplinary inquiry into how contemporary Chinese law and legal institutions work to resolve civil disputes. The result is a well-crafted volume ... Woo and Gallagher's book succeeds in its objective by capturing an unprecedented snapshot of Chinese law on the ground, taking the reader inside legal institutions as they work to resolve civil disputes.' Cambridge Law Journal 'This volume is timely as the 4th plenum of the 18th Party Congress in 2014 established the 'rule of law' as its central theme. Clearly the CCP is hoping that by emphasizing the 'rule of law', an increasingly volatile and restless society can be stabilized. However, as this excellent volume reveals, the challenges faced by the CCP will be enormous.' Chow Bing Ngeow, Journal of Chinese Political Science