Focus: Corporate Social Responsibility
Nurturing the Rule of Law in China
US businesses are helping China improve its legal system
US-China Legal Cooperation Fund staff
Since 1999, 44 US businesses have donated nearly $1 million to the US-China Legal Cooperation Fund, an effort to strengthen the rule of law in China. Members of the US-China Business Council (USCBC), publisher of the CBR, established the fund in late 1998 soon after the presidents of the United States and China committed to enhance bilateral cooperation in the field of law.
As of March 2007, the fund has made 82 grants that support a wide variety of rule-of-law projects in China. PRC and US co-participants, most of which are educational institutions and legal services organizations, jointly conduct these projects. The fund's trustees have selected the supported projects from among nearly 300 proposals. Many of the fund's grants are seed money aimed at leveraging larger grants from others. The fund uses 100 percent of its assets for project grants; the USCBC and Jones Day, which administer the program, absorb without charge all of the fund's overhead and operating costs. Below are some of the fund's accomplishments to date.
US Supporters of the LCF
The following companies and foundations have financed the US-China Legal Cooperation Fund: Cargill, Inc.; Chubb Corp.; CIGNA Foundation; Dewey Ballantine LLP; Eastman Kodak Co.; ExxonMobil Corp.; FedEx Express; Ford Motor Co.; GE Foundation; Jones Day; Mary Kay, Inc.; Motorola, Inc.; Payless ShoeSource, Inc.; Robert A. Kapp & Associates; Time Warner, Inc.; and UPS.
Promoted legal development of China's governmental process by supporting
- Compilation of a handbook on conducting Chinese village elections;
- Research on possible reforms of the PRC National People's Congress legislative procedures; and
- Research and a workshop in China on freedom of information.
Enabled Chinese citizens to understand and enforce their legal rights by supporting
- Education of Chinese farmers and lawyers in PRC land laws, and the promotion of rural land reform;
- Publication of a Chinese health law textbook for Chinese law schools; and
- Training of legal aid lawyers in representing female victims of domestic violence.
Strengthened China's judicial and administrative legal processes by supporting
- Establishment of a commercial dispute resolution facility;
- Evaluations of Chinese courts' performance in commercial litigation; and
- Training of Chinese judges in court administration.
Enabled Chinese law drafters, judges, lawyers, and law teachers to learn about US laws by supporting
- Chinese-language courses in China on US corporate, securities, and intellectual property law;
- Publication of an English-to-Chinese law dictionary and a manual for translation of international trade terms; and
- Production of a Chinese-language journal about US law.
Strengthened protection of intellectual property rights (IPR) by supporting
- A seminar for Chinese judges on IPR;
- A Chinese university patent training workshop;
- A program for US-China cooperation in education and research on IPR; and
- A study of criminal sanctions to enhance trademark protection in China.
PRC Fund Recipients
Chinese educational institutions and other organizations that have received support from the fund include the following: the All-China Lawyers Association; Beijing University; China Council for the Promotion of International Trade; China National Legal Aid Center; China University of Political Science and Law; Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; Fudan University Law School; Legal Aid Foundation of China; Legislative Affairs Office of the PRC State Council; PRC Supreme People's Court; and Tsinghua University.
Reinforced China's World Trade Organization (WTO) education and compliance efforts by supporting
- Dissemination of China's WTO obligations and requirements;
- WTO training programs for PRC judges, government officials, academics, and enterprise managers; and
- Education of PRC legislators and agriculture regulators on the implications of WTO membership on agriculture.
In 2005, the fund's trustees, with the assistance of the GE Foundation, commissioned an evaluation of the fund's work by Stephen J. Golub, an independent expert on rule-of-law programs. His report states its "core conclusion is that [the fund] plays a valuable role in contributing to improvements in China's legal system."
Case Study: Advancing Legal Aid
The US-China Legal Cooperation Fund (LCF) provided a $10,000 grant to International Bridges to Justice (IBJ) in June 2001 to support its work with the China National Legal Aid Center. Formed in 2000, IBJ is a nonprofit organization that seeks to guarantee the basic legal rights of ordinary citizens in Asia, particularly in the area of criminal justice. Established in 1996, the China National Legal Aid Center reports to the PRC Ministry of Justice and works with local legal aid organizations to provide legal services to those who cannot afford them.
Awarded just one year after IBJ was founded, the LCF grant enabled IBJ to implement the memorandum of understanding it reached with the China National Legal Aid Center in February 2001. For example, the grant helped IBJ develop a brochure for distribution by the China National Legal Aid Center to promote rights awareness in China and a "how to" criminal investigation and defense legal aid manual for legal aid attorneys. In Anhui, the grant also helped to support the development of a criminal defense skills training program and an assessment of legal aid needs. IBJ was subsequently able to build on the work that the LCF supported. In particular, IBJ established a Defense Resource Center in Anhui, the first such organization in China, to help train and advise legal aid offices throughout the province.
According to IBJ, the June 2001 LCF grant was the first it received from an organization as opposed to from individuals. That the grant came from a foundation supported by the US business community gave IBJ more credibility and helped the organization to establish its presence in China. More important, the small LCF grant enabled IBJ to attract funding from other organizations, including substantial grants from the Open Society Institute and the Echoing Green Foundation. Stephen J. Golub, an independent consultant who evaluated LCF's work in 2005, wrote in his report that although the LCF grant amount was modest, it played "a key role in the initial institutional growth of IBJ."
Since it received the June 2001 LCF grant, IBJ has significantly expanded its presence and work in China. It has established a Defense Resource Center in Beijing, organized training conferences for more than 1,000 defenders, distributed more than 500,000 posters and brochures to promote rights awareness, and conducted rights awareness campaigns in all PRC provinces and autonomous regions. IBJ has also initiated a project to enhance the quality of the legal representation of ethnic minority criminal defendants in Guizhou, Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Sichuan, and Yunnan. In September 2006, IBJ launched a project that seeks to advance the rights of juvenile defendants in seven provinces and municipalities.
Since the June 2001 initial grant, the LCF has continued to support IBJ in its efforts to promote legal aid in China. In April 2005, the LCF awarded IBJ a grant to hold a criminal-defense training seminar in Lanzhou, Gansu, in July 2005 with the China National Legal Aid Center and the Gansu Provincial Legal Aid Center. At the three-day seminar, 75 legal aid attorneys from a majority of Gansu's 104 legal aid centers received training from foreign and Chinese experts. The topics included both substantive and procedural law, and the attorneys participated in hands-on workshops to strengthen their pre-trial advocacy and trial skills, such as cross-examination techniques. In June 2006, LCF also gave a grant to IBJ to support its ethnic minority legal aid project.
—Victorien Wu
Victorien Wu is assistant editor of the CBR.
Copyright 2007 US-China Business Council
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