The historic focus on the topic of the “rule of law” at the Fourth Plenum of the CCP's 18th Party Congress underscored the degree to which basic, unresolved questions about China's legal system have come to the fore not only of societal aspirations but also of high-level policy debates.  Within this larger context, administrative law merits special attention, as the body of technical and even obscure rules where larger notions of participation, transparency, recourse, and accountability are most concretely being defined in China.  This looks to be a particularly active area of legal reform in the aftermath of the Fourth Plenum, given (i) revisions to the core laws that make up the present framework of Chinese administrative law, (ii) new momentum towards the possibility of enhancing that framework with a comprehensive administrative procedure law akin to the U.S. Administrative Procedure Act, as well as (iii) the more general promise that the anti-corruption drive lately pursued by the CCP leadership may be channeled into stronger institutional checks on government power altogether.

Neysun A. Mahboubi is a Research Scholar of the Center for the Study of Contemporary China at the University of Pennsylvania.  His primary academic interests are in the areas of administrative law, comparative law, and Chinese law, and his current writing focuses on the development of modern Chinese administrative law.  He is co-chair of the international committee of the ABA Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice, advises the Asia Foundation as well as the Administrative Conference of the United States on Chinese administrative procedure reform, and moderates the Comparative Administrative Law Listserv hosted by Yale Law School.  He also occasionally comments on Chinese legal developments for CCTV America.  He has taught at Yale Law School, the University of Connecticut School of Law, and Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public & International Affairs.  

Lunch will be served.

This event is free and open to the public, but seating may be limited.