Judicial Skills Training Seminar (Shanghai Judges Program)
Since 2002, the East Asian Legal Studies Center and the Shanghai High People's Court have jointly sponsored a judicial skills training seminar for Shanghai judges. With strong support and active involvement from the Wisconsin and federal judiciaries, the judicial training programs completed thus far have provided intensive, one-week training sessions in Shanghai on U.S. judicial practice to approximately 120 young Shanghai judges, and have provided three-week advanced training sessions in Madison, Wisconsin, to approximately eighty of those judges. During each of the programs, judges from the Shanghai district courts, intermediate courts, and the High People's Court participate in courtroom observations, formal lectures, and informal discussions with Wisconsin and federal judges, and with faculty from the University of Wisconsin Law School.
The 2008 program: Eighteen judges from Shanghai came to Madison
to participate in the Sixth Annual Judicial Skills Training
Seminar, October 19 to November 7, 2008. The judges ended their
first week with a visit to the American Bar Association in Chicago
and observation of oral arguments heard by the federal Court of
Appeals of the 7th Circuit. They made many observations in the
trial court in Madison and also visited the 7th Circuit District
Court, Western District of Wisconsin, located in Madison. Many Law
School faculty as well as area attorneys presented special lectures
to the group as part of their three-week seminar.
The 2007 program: Twenty judges from Shanghai participated in
the Fifth Annual Judicial Skills Training Seminar July 21- August
11, 2007. During each of the programs, judges from the Shanghai
district courts, intermediate courts, and the High People's Court
participate in courtroom observations, formal lectures, and
informal discussions with Wisconsin and federal judges, and with
faculty from the University of Wisconsin Law School.
The 2007 program began in Shanghai during the week of June 9,
2007 in Shanghai, when four judges from the Dane County Circuit
Court, Judges Michael Nowakowski, Angela Bartell, Sarah O'Brien,
and John Albert, and Law School Professor John Ohnesorge went to
Shanghai to teach the first section of the program. The judges
began the U.S. part of the program with a trip to Minneapolis/St.
Paul to meet with members of the federal judiciary. (See photo on
this page.) Their program continued in Madison with extensive
court observations, discussions with judges, and classes at the Law
School. The program concluded on August 11, 2007 in Madison.
For one of the many articles that appeared in the press about the Law School 's Shanghai Judges program, see http://www.wislawjournal.com/archive/2006/0726/china.html.
The "Shanghai Judges" program is fortunate to have had the able assistance of the Center's Associate Outreach Specialist, Ms. Wenjie Hu, and LL.M. Candidate, Ms. Cindy Whang, who once again brought their extensive experience in administering high caliber professional programs to the Fifth Annual Seminar.
Shanghai Minhang District Seminar on Municipal Government Administration
Building upon the Center's existing programs in China, this program presents seminars dealing with U.S. administrative law and regulatory practices. The target audience is Shanghai government officials at the municipal (provincial) and district levels, and the primary goal is to increase transparency, predictability, legality and fairness in government regulation and in the delivery of services.
The program was designed around three central aspects of governance and administrative law in the United States: 1) the making of rules and regulations by government agencies, and the law governing that process; 2) the deciding of individual cases by government agencies, and the law governing those types of decisions; and 3) the ability of private actors to seek judicial review of either type of action, and the standards by which the courts review those actions. This approach allows the presentation of both the actual practices of American governmental bodies in various fields and at various levels, as well as the ways in which American administrative law seeks to facilitate effective government action, while at the same time advancing broader goals such as transparency, fairness, and legality.
2008 Program: Twenty municipal workers from
the Minhang District of Shanghai participated in this year's
Seminar on Municipal Government Administration which began on
November 23, 2008 and concluded at the end of January 2009. The
Madison component of the program was preceded by a session in
Shanghai, attended by fifty government officials, including the 20
who were selected to come to Madison.
During the Seminar, the participants attended a four-week course
and then interned for three weeks at various departments of the
Wisconsin state government and also at a senior center in Madison.
The participants met the mayor of Madison and the mayor of
Milwaukee during their stay. They also visited community leaders
in other cities, such as Boston, New York, Washington, D.C.,
Philadelphia, San Diego, and Los Angeles. They participants also
met the leads of the Black River Ho-Chunk Nation in Wisconsin and
learned of the culture of this Native American Nation and its
administration.
2007 Program: Twenty municipal workers from the Minhang District of Shanghai, China, were in Madison August 18 through October 27, 2007, to participate in a ten-week training program in Madison, Wisconsin, and other cities in the U.S. As part of this "Seminar on Municipal Government Administration," the twenty were part of fifty government officials from the Minhang District who participated in a two-week seminar, June 9-23, 2007 in Shanghai. Twenty of the fifty were selected to attend the seminar in the U.S.
An article about the program can be found at
Wuhan Judges Program
A delegation of judges from Wuhan, China, came to the Law School in December 2008 for lectures on Intellectual Property.
Advanced Judicial Skills Training Seminar
The Center also carries out the Advanced Judicial Skills
Training Seminar, in which two Shanghai judges are in residence at
the University of Wisconsin Law School for one semester as visiting
scholars and close observers of the U.S. judiciary. This seminar,
which is partly financed by the U.S.-China Legal Cooperation Fund,
allows the two judges to undertake in-depth research at the
University of Wisconsin Law School at the same time they are
exposed to U.S. judicial practices. The first Advanced Judicial
Skills Seminar was held during the fall semester of 2005, and the
second in spring of 2007. A third seminar took place in the fall
of 2007. The Center has been awarded grants totaling of $29,800 by
the U.S.-China Legal Cooperation Fund to help fund these three
seminars.
Zhejiang Procurators' Program (China)
A professional program of training and observation for the Zhejiang Provincial Procurators was held in Madison and other cities in early December 2007. This program was presented by the Zhejiang Provincial Procuratorate and the East Asian Legal Studies Center. Zhejiang procurators had an eight day course of study and were able to observe the different court systems in Madison, and also visited New York, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia.
In January 2006, under a program developed and sponsored by the
Center, University of Wisconsin law students joined students from
Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok for a two week course on
cross-cultural negotiations. The course was taught by Professor
Ralph Cagle of the University of Wisconsin Law School. In January
2005, John Ohnesorge taught a two-week course in Comparative
Corporate Governarnce at Thammasat University, Bangkok, for UW law
students and Thammasat law students. In January 2006, Professor
Ohnesorge taught a short, intensive course on law and development
in Northeast Asia at Xiamen University, Xiamen, China, to another
group of Wisconsin students and students from Xiamen University.
In January 2007, the Center, again in connection with Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, offered a two-week course on cross-cultural negotiations. Professor Cagle taught the course. Also in Bangkok during January 2007, Professor Allison Christians, UW Law School professor, taught a short course on International Tax and Treaty issues at Thammasat University for a group of UW Law School students and Thammasat law students.
In May 2007, Professor Stephanie Tai, under the auspices of the East Asian Legal Studies Center, taught a short course on Water Law issues. The course was held at Hanoi Law University and was attended by students of HLU and the UW Law School.
Past programs:
International Conference on Legal Education Reform, Taipei, Taiwan
On September 16 and 17, 2005, the Center co-sponsored a conference on reforms in global legal education. The conference was in Taipei, with National Taiwan University and Hokkaido University as co-sponsors. Papers presented at the conference are available in volume 24 of the Wisconsin International Law Journal (Winter 2006).
International Trade Conference, VungTau, Vietnam
On February 20 and 21, 2006 the Center co-sponsored a conference on international trade law in VungTau, Vietnam. The conference attendees were principally mid-level Vietnamese government officials. The Vietnamese government, Lund University ( Sweden), and Nagoya University ( Japan) were co-sponsors. The VungTau conference was part of the ongoing activities of a consortium of the law faculties of Lund University, Nagoya University, and the University of Wisconsin's East Asian Legal Studies Center.
Corporate Governance and Taiwan's Capital Markets, Taipei, Taiwan
On April 6 and 7, 2006, the Center co-sponsored a conference entitled "Corporate Governance and Taiwan's Capital Markets." The conference was in Taipei, and was attended by international institutional investors, the Taiwan business community, and senior officials from the Taiwan government's regulatory agencies. The co-sponsors were the Taiwan Securities Association, and the Fuhwa Cultural and Educational Foundation. At the conclusion of the conference, plans were made to hold a similar conference in 2007, with the possibility of the conference then becoming an annual event. More detailed information about the 2006 conference is available online at http://www.law.wisc.edu/ealsc/wicgi/.