Abstract The coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has been cited as a factor that has accelerated the development of artificial intelligence (AI) across several areas, unsurprisingly including healthcare and epidemic management. AI was a critical tool in the fight against COVID-19 and has been utilized in pandemic surveillance, diagnosis, outcome prediction, drug discovery, and vaccine development. With the rapid development of AI that was catalysed by COVID-19, the Law will yet again be challenged and have to adapt to technology. This article considers one aspect of this, namely the rules relating to contract formation at common law. The article outlines two important types of AI by purpose—Generative AI and Agentic AI. As agentic AI is the focus of this article, it goes on to discuss the role of the law of agency in the context of agentic AI. This is followed by a section on how the rules of Offer and Acceptance in Contract Law can accommodate scenarios where contracts are being formed with minimal human intervention and awareness. And, if a contract can be formed in such a manner, how might the law of mistake be used to mitigate errors that may arise?

Abstract The emergence of crypto assets, a novel category of assets, has posed significant challenges to property law across various legal systems. The integration of these intangible assets into property law frameworks proves to be complicated for many civil law jurisdictions, which tend to adhere to dogmatic approaches. In contrast, Anglo-American common law and Chinese civil law systems, despite their divergent origins, have exhibited legally pragmatic responses to intangible property, including crypto assets. By examining the development of their property laws concerning property conceptualization and the treatment of emerging intangible assets, this article explores how the historical foundations of Anglo-American common law in feudal tradition and Chinese civil law in communist ideologies have fostered adaptable and flexible notions of property. This adaptability is argued to be a strength within both the Anglo-American common law and Chinese civil law systems, enabling them to accommodate innovative intangible assets more easily compared to their civilian counterparts.

Abstract In December 2021, Evergrande, the second-largest private property developer in China, defaulted on its debt and became the most indebted firm in the world with over $300 billion in liabilities. Its default marked the beginning of a real estate crisis in China, one that is still in the process of being resolved. The Chinese State, through its State-owned enterprises (SOEs), has played an enormous role in mitigating the crisis. Had it not, it is very unlikely that Evergrande would remain in existence today, with huge ramifications for Chinese society and the national economy. This article undertakes a case study of Evergrande, a privately owned enterprise (POE) that exhibits SOE characteristics, to shed further light on the web of interactions between large enterprises in China. It reconsiders how ‘private’ some POEs are in the Chinese economy and argues that, at a certain level, both SOEs and POEs operate in a co-dependent manner. Not only does this challenge the conventional distinction between SOEs and POEs, but it also has wide-ranging implications for corporate governance in China. Indeed, SOEs find themselves having to bail out POEs and are exerting control over POEs in which they have no equity stake. SOEs are thus financially burdened with protecting all large enterprises including POEs, whereas POEs can operate in an unregulated fashion and receive rents from their close ties to SOEs. Altogether, this article’s analysis showcases the operation of various themes of Chinese corporate governance and contributes to the existing literature seeking to understand the unique role of the State in Chinese enterprises.

Abstract Do Chinese judges follow prior decisions fraught with judicial errors? If they do, why do they do so? The development of policies on the reform of China’s judicial system requires an answer to these questions. Unfortunately, empirical findings that may lead to an answer, especially those based on data collected from case reports, are lacking. To fill this gap, we undertook an analysis of 310 case reports on a complex issue to discover (i) the influence of two wrongly decided precedents announced by the Supreme People’s Court and (ii) the extent to which the rank of the deciding court affects the force of this influence. Our findings suggest that judges may rely on an officially designated precedent even if the latter is wrongly decided and the strength of the influence is negatively correlated with the seniority of the deciding court. Our findings are useful for isolating factors affecting judicial decision making in China, which are necessary for making decisions on the reform of judicial system in that country.

Abstract This article discusses China’s newly enacted Family Education Promotion Law (FEPL). The FEPL symbolizes that family education through parenting has elevated from a private matter to a State affair in the country. The Law seeks to promote family governance through the concept of ‘parenting in accordance with the law’ so as to attain national ideals and improve the protection of minors. The prominent ends at the national level are the moral development of children and the construction of a harmonious State. Concepts of ‘population quality’ and ‘double alleviation’ are discussed with reference to their significance in relation to the enactment of the Law. The promulgation of the FEPL targets substandard parenting practices in China, including hyper-parenting on the one end and abandonment on the other. Typical practices such as inter-generational child-rearing are examined to illustrate why the Law is considered necessary from the State’s point of view. The article provides an analysis of the legislative intentions, background, and key provisions of the Law. It concludes that family governance through the notion of responsible parenting is an instrument of social policy in modern China.

Abstract We use the 1910 Copyright Code of the Great Qing Dynasty (Qing Copyright Code) as a lens to understand China’s initial encounter with international intellectual property norms, examine the dynamic political economy in which the law was enacted, and provide an overview of the structure and important provisions of the Qing Copyright Code. We argue that, although foreign pressure was an important factor shaping the Qing Copyright Code, the Code was designed not to protect the economic interests of foreigners in China but to achieve a pair of distinct goals: advance China’s national interests in accessing Western knowledge and incentivize the production and dissemination of knowledge in the country. This argument is substantiated by not only the political economy of the legislation but also the later implementation of the law.

Abstract In the contracting States of the Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG), where the CISG applies via its Article 1, the courts have a duty under public international law to apply its rules automatically, regardless of the parties’ awareness in this respect. At the same time, the parties have a subsequent autonomy based on Article 6 of the CISG to exclude the application of the Convention, which may be done expressly or by implication. Such an exclusion may take place at various stages of the parties’ legal relationship, including during legal proceedings. Due to the fact that the legal representatives are often not aware of the CISG’s existence and its potential automatic application to the given case, when a dispute arises, they may fail to plead or base their arguments on the basis of its applicable rules. This article focuses on the adjudicator’s duty to apply the CISG ex officio, together with the possibility and requirements regarding its exclusions made during legal proceedings, given the example of two recent Chinese cases. In this contribution, it is advocated that the failure by the parties’ representatives to plead and base their arguments during litigation over the applicable CISG rules is not a sufficient indication of their intention to exclude the Convention.

Abstract Both the Blackstone ratio and due process are cornerstones of classical philosophy in criminal law and justice around the world. However, less consideration has been paid to contemporary society and whether the public shares this theoretical approach. Using data from four waves of the International Social Survey Programme, examining public attitudes towards controlling habitual criminals and suspected terrorists across countries, I offer evidence for how preference towards authorities’ reactions (a proxy of fear of crime) affects preferences about judicial errors. My analysis shows that (i) the public supports the authorities in taking action against criminals and terrorists without a court order, though in different proportions depending on the specific means at hand; (ii) the apparent paradox of public support for the elegance of due process and fear of crime can be explained by the difficult reality of controlling criminals; (iii) absolute proponents consider type one errors to be worse and thus will not support any measures being taken, while absolute proponents consider type two errors to be worse and steps therefore need to be taken to prevent communities from the risk from crime or terrorist attacks; (iv) members of the public who favour proactive policing are significantly less likely to consider type one errors to be worse than type two; and (v) citizens across countries share the above features in a longitudinal survey. Legislators, law professors, and criminologists in transitional risk societies around the world should reconsider their justification of anti-Blackstonian theory and the crime control model.

Abstract The recently enacted Law of the People’s Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (NSL) is unique in global perspective: it was both drafted by and adopted from a jurisdiction espousing an entirely different type of legal system. In this article, I consider the NSL as a potential socialist legal transplant from the People’s Republic of China to its Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong upon its promulgation in June 2020. I consider why, in the criminal law context, the NSL bears certain socialist characteristics and may even be classified as a socialist law. I also consider whether the NSL might be the world’s first ever socialist criminal law transplant into a common law jurisdiction, and discuss what this might mean for legal interpretation and comparative law scholarship more generally. While existing comparative law scholarship on legal transplants has focused, where relevant, on transplants into States espousing socialist legal systems or between such systems, rarely have scholars encountered and analysed laws making their way across legal boundaries in the other direction. This article uses the example of the NSL, enacted by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress in Beijing and applied to Hong Kong’s common law legal system, to begin to fill the gap.