Oxford Programme in Asian Laws Annual Lecture: Beyond Duality: Defining Law in China Today

Scholarship on Chinese law and legal institutions frequently asks whether China is or is not becoming more law-based. Under this line of analysis, courts either follow the written law or fail to do so. Yet viewing Chinese legal practice through this “law” versus “not-law” binary often overlooks the question of what constitutes law, or the sources of norms that courts apply. This lecture will examine the sources and understanding of law in China today, exploring how the definition of law has been destabilized and has become an area of contestation. Drawing on recent scholarship on Party rules, contemporary legal ideology, and courts’ appeal to conceptions of justice in routine cases, Professor Liebman will argue for increased attention to the norms that are actually applied in everyday cases in China and will explore how shifting definitions of law affect the functioning of the Chinese legal system. In doing so, this lecture reveals the limits to the duality frame that has become increasingly popular in contemporary analyses of the Chinese legal system. 

About the Speaker 

Benjamin L. Liebman is Robert L. Lieff Professor of Law and Director of Hong Yen Chang Center for Chinese Legal Studies at Columbia Law School. Widely known as a preeminent scholar of contemporary Chinese law, Liebman studies Chinese court judgments, the roles of artificial intelligence and big data in the Chinese legal system, Chinese tort law, Chinese criminal procedure, and the evolution of China’s courts. His research has covered diverse topics in Chinese law over the years, ranging from leniency in criminal law to medical dispute resolution and securities markets. Professor Liebman also serves as the director of the Parker School of Foreign and Comparative Law.