China has been on our mind lately. Maybe it’s our recent attendance at the Brigham-Kanner property rights conference held in Beijing in October. Maybe it’s last week’s talk to our law firm by an old friend on lessons that can be learned from China’s move from communism to a market economy.
Whatever is causing China
My old friend and law school classmate Laurence Brahm is in town for a few weeks as a visiting fellow at the East-West Center, and took some time off last week from finishing his latest book to come down to our law firm and share his views on the issues of the day. Here’s his
In case you missed out on the 8th Annual Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Conference, held last month in Beijing, check out this video (here is the page with links to all of our posts related to the conference).
The Conference was a resounding success, and featured presentations and papers by the creme de la creme
Law professor Richard Epstein was a featured speaker (and past Brigham-Kanner prize winner) at the recent B-K Property Rights Conference in Beijing. He’s summarized his thoughts and insights in “Going Red on Property Rights,” posted at the Hoover Institute’s site. He writes:
Earlier this month, I attended a Chinese-American Conference in Beijing on property rights co-sponsored by the William and Mary Law School and the Tsinghua University Law School. One purpose of the conference was to award in absentia the Brigham-Kanner Prize to retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor for her contributions to understanding the law of property. The intensive two-day discussions on property rights were open, animated, and cordial. They also revealed deep ironies in both the Chinese and American approaches to property rights.
The entire piece is well worth reading. All of our posts on the B-K Conference are collected here. I’m writing my wrap-up of the Conference and will post it shortly.
In the meantime, I offer this little story.
A few of us are walking the 15 minutes from the hotel to the moot courtroom at the Tsinghua Law School, through the university campus. We cross the lightly traveled road, and most of us step up onto the opposite sidewalk. Professor Epstein, engrossed in conversation with another lawprof, doesn’t notice they are walking down the middle of the road, blocking traffic.
A few seconds later, a car comes up behind them.
In Beijing, pedestrians decidedly do not have the right of way.
“Get out of the road!” we call out.
Epstein slowly turns around, looks at the car, looks at us, and says with a smile, “sidewalks are for mere mortals.”
(But he does get out of the road.)
Continue Reading Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Conference – “Mere Mortal” Professor Richard Epstein on “Going Red on Property Rights”
At the U.S. Embassy in Beijing last Thursday, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor was presented this year’s Brigham-Kanner prize. She was not able to attend in person, so delivered her acceptance speech by videotape. In her talk, she discussed the property-related opinions which she either authored or joined, including Midkiff, Nollan, Dolan, Yee
There were many memorable moments and quotes during the three-plus days of the Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Conference in Beijing. But perhaps the most telling came our way second-hand from an ear witness:
At the farewell banquet, a prominent American lawyer was toasting the Tsinghua University Law School students, raising his class with the salute “to
Well, we were beset by a series of technical difficulties yesterday (the internet connection suddenly spit us out, we were unable to log back on, our laptop just shut off, followed by mysterious battery problems), so we were not able to continue the live blog.(Was it something we said?)
That’s ok, since by then it
In the hallway of the main building of the Tsinghua Law School is an electronic billboard with notices of upcoming events and classes.
This is what they are studying at Chinese law schools.
Any questions?
Most interesting comments at tonight’s event awarding the Brigham-Kanner prize to Justice (Ret.) Sandra Day O’Connor were the remarks by the Dean of Tsinghua Law School.
“When you amended your Constitution for the first time,” he noted, “you protected things such as speech. When China amended its Constitution for the first time, we protected property.”
Live blogging the second day of the Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Conference from the moot courtroom at Tsinghua Law School, Beijing PRC.