Great Beginning to the Year of the Rooster

Happy Chinese New Year! Following our success in 2016, the China Guiding Cases Project (“CGCP”) aspires to achieve even more during the Year of the Rooster and is excited to share the following news:

• • The Honorable Judge GUO Feng, Deputy Director, Research Office of the Supreme People’s Court (“SPC”) of the People’s Republic of China, has kindly agreed to be our honorary adviser.  We feel honored and look forward to working closely with the SPC to help develop China’s Guiding Cases System.
  • With Judge Guo Feng’s approval, we have published in English and Chinese his speech titled “The Compilation and Application of China’s Guiding Cases” delivered at our Guiding Cases Seminar^TM held in November 2016 in Beijing.  At the end of his speech, Judge Guo said:

“[…] the system [of Guiding Cases] is still new.  Its theoretical basis, its relationship with statutes, effect, rules of reference and application, and many other issues merit further study. […] We sincerely hope that people from Chinese and foreign circles of legal theory, judicial practice, and the entire society will continue to support our work and contribute together to the work of case guidance in China’s courts!”

RSVP for Another Seminar

In response to Judge Guo’s call for more contributions from different parties, we have decided to hold another Guiding Cases Seminar^TM titled “Growing Significance of Cases in China: Implications for Legal Education and Legal Practice” on Wednesday, February 22, 2017, from 5:30 – 8 p.m., featuring as keynote speaker the Honorable Sidney H. Stein (Senior Judge, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York) along with Dr. Mei Gechlik (Founder & Director of the CGCP), as well as DAI Di (Ph.D. candidate, Peking University Law School; Former Attorney, Beijing Haijia Law Firm), Jennifer Ingram (Fellow and Co-Managing Editor of the CGCP), Professor Jeffrey S. Lubbers (Professor of Practice in Administrative Law, Washington College of Law, American University) and Gwenann Manseau (Senior Counsel, Office of the Chief Counsel for International Commerce, U.S. Department of Commerce).

Please RSVP here to reserve a place at the event.  For more information about the program, please click here.  We sincerely thank Washington College of Law (“WCL”), American University for supporting us to hold this important event on its beautiful campus.  We feel honored that Dean Lia Epperson (Senior Associate Dean for Faculty and Academic Affairs; Professor of Law, WCL) and Cathy Schenker(Associate Director, International Legal Studies Program, WCL) will make some opening remarks.  We look forward to seeing you in Washington, D.C.

New Guiding Cases

On November 22, 2016, Dr. Mei Gechlik (Founder & Director of the CGCP), together with our advisers, Judge DING Xiaoyu and Dr. YUAN Changchun, and CGCP Co-Managing Editor Dimitri Phillips visited the Supreme People’s Court. We had the pleasure to learn that Guiding Cases (“GCs”) will be released in greater number and/or frequency going forward. Indeed, in late December, the 15th batch of GCs was released, bringing the total number of GCs to 77, of which 4 were released in 2011 (in the fourth quarter), 8 in 2012, 10 in 2013, 22 in 2014, 12 in 2015, and 21 in 2016. The revival of the upward trend in the number of GCs released per year is most encouraging.

Of the 8 new GCs released last month, No. 70 is of special significance as it helps to clarify the crime of producing and selling toxic and harmful food.  This is obviously a topic of “widespread concern to society” (a criterion for selecting GCs, as discussed in Judge Guo Feng’s speech).  The “Main Points of the Adjudication” of GC No. 70 are:

“Although a substance added by an actor in food production and operation [activities] is not on the List of Non-Edible Substances That May Have Been Unlawfully Added to Food or the List of Substances That May Have Been Illegally Added to Health Food, [both of which are] published by relevant departments of the State Council, [the substance] should still be determined to be a “toxic and harmful non-food raw material” as provided in Article 144 of the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China if the substance possesses the same attributes as those substances recorded on the aforementioned lists and the substance can be determined, according to related materials, including inspection reports and expert opinions, [to cause] the same harm to human bodies.”

More Belt & Road Materials

The CGCP launched the Belt & Road Series in November 2016 to draw our global audience’s attention to the connection between the Guiding Cases System and China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Every month, we feature a select number of countries covered by the Belt & Road Series. We release new B&R Texts^TM, a compilation of primary sources forming the legal framework of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, including legal cooperation agreements between China and countries along the “Belt and Road” routes. This month, we are pleased to highlight agreements between China and Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Romania. For the full list of “Belt and Road” countries, please visit here.

Throughout the Year of the Rooster, we hope to bring you more insights about China’s GCs. Please help us achieve this goal and make a gift to us today to become part of our historic mission to help China develop its case law system. Thank you for your support. We hope you enjoy the Chinese presentation at the following QR code created to mark the beginning of the new year!