Lan Cao

Chinese Privatization: Between Plan and Market

The current state of Chinese privatization remains deeply flawed. While the initial deferral of state-sector privatization in favor of first creating a marketized, non-state sector was, I argue, an economically wise strategy, the government’s current lethargic response toward solving the problems associated with its economically bankrupt state sector, through its insistence on maintaining rigid political control over firms, has created an economically untenable situation. This Article argues that, to the extent that state-sector privatization has been undertaken at all, it has been on the whole uneven, due primarily to the government’s preoccupation with political control at the expense of economic efficiency. Continued subsidization of too many state firms has meant the continuation of political, rather than commercially based, provisions of capital, which has in turn meant too little, if any bankruptcy-induced exits for economically insolvent enterprises. This Article concludes that, unless China takes the necessary actions to move its state sector away from the central plan, towards the market, and creates institutions that are needed to make a market function, it will suffer the costs of deferred privatization and economic distortion. This Article seeks to further demonstrate that the critical view that the Chinese experience is either irrelevant or inconsequential, or that China is but a recalcitrant adherent to the old ways is a grossly incorrect one.

Illegal Traffic in Women: A Civil Rico Proposal

For thousands of years, it has been regulated, reviled, and criminalized, yet it remains a deeply entrenched and pervasive institution in our society. Despite its ubiquitous presence, prostitution and the problems associated with it—the violence, abuse, and degradation of women—remain invisible to and low priorities for the nations law enforcement agencies. Invisibility, paradoxically, is even more pronounced in cases of forced prostitution. This Note first examines the nature of forced prostitution and the illegal traffic in women for this purpose. It then describes how a private right of action under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) can enable women in prostitution to fight the problems that the government can or will not.

Culture in Law and Development: Nurturing Positive Change

CULTURE IN LAW & DEVELOPMENT: NURTURING POSITIVE CHANGE (Oxford University Press, May 2016) examines why law and development has failed despite years of rule of law efforts pursued by governments, international agencies, and nongovernmental organizations. Law and development has had many incarnations, but “rule of law” is a core component. The standard law and development template includes predictable prescriptions such as drafting laws, constructing institutions, and promoting legal education. These are important steps towards the development of a market economy and the establishment of a state that is appropriately subject to the constraints of law. However, law and development does not need more laws because law alone is insufficient. Preoccupation with the institutional, legalistic and technocratic dimensions of law and development has created a systemic blind spot to culture. This book traces the acultural tradition of public international law, international relations, private international law and international human rights law. It then argues that despite this deeply entrenched acultural framework, law and development needs to supplement rule of law projects with culture change projects, so that rule of law objectives can be established in a cultural environment that supports broad development objectives such as maximizing human capability and freedom. Law and development is deeply embedded in cultural norms. This book builds on the works of scholars such as Amartya Sen, Martha Nussbaum and Arjun Appadurai. It adopts a holistic view of development and argues that cultural norms that impede the human capabilities of the poor, women and other marginal groups should be changed. Some anti-development norms fall within a human rights framework, such as female genital mutilation, footbinding and caste. Others, such as denying girls access to basic education, straddle both human rights and law and development traditions. Others might fit more within a market-oriented view of law and development. This book urges law and development scholars and practitioners to reject the acultural tradition of related fields such as public and private international law, international relations and even international human rights law and embark instead on a respectful but robust engagement with culture. Using concrete examples and country-specific case studies, the book defends culture change normatively and critically demonstrates how culture change has been accomplished.