Author: Justine Zheng Ren, LSE

‘Mass incidents’, as civil unrest is officially called in China, have proved to be an inescapable social and political phenomenon.

After a long period of economic boom with little investment in institutional change, the current conflict resolution mechanisms are no longer capable of sustaining China’s changing social structure and political relationships. Read more…

Authors: Tim Lindsey, University of Melbourne, and Cate Sumner, Indonesia

Once routinely described as ‘Islam with a smiling face,’ the image of Indonesian Islam has been sullied in recent years by a noisy minority of radicals.

The toxic combination of the violent terrorism of Jemaah Islamiyah, vigilante gangs like the Islamic Defenders Front (Front Pembela Islam), inter-religious civil wars in eastern Indonesia, and local governments legislating conservative versions of sharia have all given the impression to some outsiders of an incipient takeover by what Indonesians call ‘hardliners’ (garis keras). Read more…

Author: Clark B. Lombardi, University of Washington

Islamic law is playing an increasing role in the Malaysian legal system. While many celebrate this trend, liberal Muslims inside and outside of Malaysia are concerned.

In particular, liberal Muslims are concerned about the recent application of strict Islamic law to women, Muslims who hold unorthodox beliefs, or religious minorities. Read more…

Author: Brent White, University of Arizona

If you want a sense of the outcome of rule-of-law reform efforts in Mongolia over the last two decades, spend a few hours driving in Ulaanbaatar.

Your immediate impression is likely to be one of chaos. Read more…

Author: Hualing Fu, HKU

Public interest lawyering (PIL) has developed quickly in China since its reception in the mid-1990s, and a small number of lawyers have used litigation as a key law reform strategy.

The popularity of PIL in China can be explained by the lack of alternative opportunities for citizens to assert their rights. Read more…

Author: Donald C. Clarke, George Washington University Law School

When the Chinese authorities detained human rights lawyer Teng Biao last year, they had little patience with his legal objections.

‘Don’t talk so much about the law with me. Read more…

Author: Luke Nottage, The University of Sydney

In its recent review of Bilateral and Regional Trade Agreements (BRTAs), the majority report from Australia’s Productivity Commission remained opposed to including treaty provisions for investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS).

Recommendation 4(c) advised that Australia should not include ISDS ‘provisions in BRTAs that grant foreign investors in Australia substantive or procedural rights greater than those enjoyed by Australian investors.’ Read more…

Author: Veronica Taylor, ANU

Visual images of regulatory failure in Asia are a staple of mainstream media in the west: contaminated food killing children; humanitarian disasters magnified by ramshackle construction; industrial landscapes thick with sulphurous smoke; corrupt officials facilitating transactions from traffic fines to people smuggling.

In policy literature these acute social, economic and environmental issues are attributed to deficient national and local governance and a lack of regulatory capacity. Read more…

Author: Morten B. Pedersen, UNSW@ADFA

International regulation of human rights poses a difficult challenge. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the case of Burma, which has topped the international human rights agenda for over two decades, with little to show for it.

This is, in part, a problem of limited international influence, which is bound to remain in short supply. Yet, it has been compounded by a failure of imagination. While we might not be able to end human rights violations in Burma, we could almost certainly do better.  Read more…

Authors: Donald R. Rothwell and Hitoshi Nasu, ANU College of Law, Australian National University

While the United Nations Security Council’s adoption of Resolution 1973 on 17 March 2011 may well go down in UN history as one of the more momentous occasions, not only for the UN but also the contemporary development of international law, for the time being the international community is fixated on the military implementation of the Resolution in Libya.

Despite the relative speed with which the Security Council first acted on 26 February, when it unanimously adopted Resolution 1970 (which imposed sanctions against the Libyan regime in the face of a mounting humanitarian crisis, and then followed it up with Resolution 1973 only 19 days later), it was clear that no detailed consideration had been given as to how the military enforcement of the Security Council’s mandate would be carried out. Read more…

Author: Andrew Herd, ANU

In November last year the High Court of Australia handed down a decision that has potentially major ramifications for the future of Australia’s asylum seeker policy. The High Court unanimously decided that two Sri Lankan asylum seekers who had arrived on Christmas Island claiming asylum had been denied procedural fairness after being processed as offshore arrivals.

Although Christmas Island is part of Australia, and has been since 1958, the Howard government excised it and other islands across the north of Australia from the migration zone in the early 2000s. Under the Howard government, those who reached these islands were transported to Nauru or Manus Island for processing under the so-called ‘Pacific Solution.’ Read more…

Author: Bornali Bhandari, NCAER

Looking back at 2010, what is the biggest hurdle in the Indian growth story that occurs in myriad reports and research? The one word answer is ‘land’.

Increased economic growth has only increased the many alternative uses of land, such as for agriculture, industries, infrastructure (roads, railways, power, telecom, mining etc), building houses, malls and other economic activities. Read more…

Author: Evelyn Devadason, ANU

Malaysia has a total of 1.9 million registered migrant workers, constituting approximately 21 per cent of the workforce, making Malaysia the largest importer of labour in Asia.

Despite the large presence of migrant workers in the economy, the policies and laws regulating in-migration are chaotic. Policies built on the concept of a short-term remedy for labour shortage problems have exposed the failure on the part of policymakers to recognise the critical contribution of migrant workers over the longer term. Read more…

Author: Mahendra Ved, New Delhi

People around the world are happy about the release of Aung San Suu Kyi from detention, just as they are unhappy about the way Myanmar held an election that preceded her freedom. For India, Suu Kyi’s release is another step in its complicated diplomatic relationship with Myanmar.

Persecuted since she won an election in 1990, Suu Kyi has had phases of freedom in the past. The difference this time is that the military junta feels international pressures, and after forcing a fait accompli so far as governance is concerned, wants to engage in a public relations exercise. Read more…

Author: Sourabh Gupta, Samuels International

On September 7th, in the ‘territorial seas’ of the Senkaku/Daioyu islands, a Chinese fishing trawler rammed two Japanese coast guard vessels with deliberate intent. While the trawler’s detained crew of 14 was released on September 13th after being questioned on a voluntary basis, the skipper was arrested on September 10th and placed under a court-authorised 10-day detention period while prosecutors deliberated whether to indict him or not. Following extension of the detention for a further 10-day period on September 20th, and with Beijing blowing a fit – and ties deteriorating, Tokyo made a political decision on September 24th to release the offending fisherman, though it was officially framed as an independent decision of the Naha District Public Prosecutors Office.

Basic Sovereignty-related Aspects of the Senkakus/Daioyus

Though under Japan’s effective control and administration, sovereignty over the islands is contested by both China and Taiwan. Read more…