9th Annual Conference: Making, Enforcing and Accessing the Law
15th and 16th November 2014
The 2014 Annual Conference of the European China Law Studies Association (ECLS) was hosted by the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) on the 15th and 16th of November. The two-day conference gathered the intellectual acumen of many academic and professional leaders from Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Macau, mainland China, Netherlands, Singapore, Ukraine, United Kingdom, and United States, to name but a few. With reference to China’s ongoing reform, the conference brought together academics, professionals, members of the judiciary, policy makers, and the like, with their collective knowledge and expertise to engage open communication with the themes of “making, enforcing and accessing the law”. Founded in 2006, the ECLS seeks to establish a forum for the global exchange of ideas and academic collaboration in Chinese legal studies. As the first ECLS annual conference held outside Europe, this year’s gathering not only benefited from geographic proximity to China, but was also enhanced by the cultural richness of Hong Kong, one of the world’s greatest cosmopolitan cities.
The initiative for ECLS was launched at a workshop under the heading of “Chinese Legal Research in Europe: A Workshop Mapping European Research on Chinese Law and Creating a European Network”, held in Lund and Mölle, 1–4 June 2006. It was organised by the Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, Lund University, and co-sponsored by the Swedish School of Advanced Asia Pacific Studies.
The focus was both on institutions involved in the study of Chinese law and on individual research. With Professor Marina Svensson and Dr Jonas Grimheden chairing discussions and more than 20 speakers presenting reports on China-related legal research in their home country and/or outlining their own research projects, the workshop provided the participants with an excellent overview of China legal studies in Europe and beyond.