Legal and Trade Barriers. Volume 1

Author: Wang Yanlin
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-03-01
Features: Law is an ancient discipline. However, China's legal education is relatively young. The numerous controversies surrounding the goals of legal education reform and the evident surplus of law school graduates have forced people to ask: Is the educational model of the current 300+ law schools unified or diverse? What is the development path for law schools outside top-tier institutions? For a large number of engineering-oriented universities that have established law programs under the influence of the "Rule of Law" initiative, how can they develop their own unique characteristics rooted in their engineering foundations? These are all questions that I had to ponder and explore after joining China Jiliang University.
In my opinion, to stand out and secure a place in the fierce competition of domestic legal discipline development, the School of Law at China Jiliang University must first cultivate irreplaceable or hard-to-replace characteristics to compensate for its late start and relatively weaker overall strength. To achieve this, we must tap into the unique advantages of the School of Law itself. Specifically, we should leverage China Jiliang University's status as the only specialized institution within the former State Technical Supervision Administration (now the National Administration for Quality Supervision, Inspection, and Quarantine) system and its location in Zhejiang, a major economic province. By expanding research fields at the intersection of industry-specific knowledge and local knowledge, and by identifying niche areas, signature achievements, and academic influence in the margins, gaps, or emerging trends of legal research, we can develop our own strengths.
The National Administration for Quality Supervision, Inspection, and Quarantine is responsible for numerous tasks, including metrology, standardization, quality supervision, special equipment inspection, entry-exit inspection and quarantine, and food safety. These responsibilities have significantly influenced the university's departmental structure, talent cultivation, and discipline development. Specifically, in the context of the law program, the "Nine Laws and One Regulation" that underpin the administration's regulatory and enforcement practices may be glanced over in general legal education, but the School of Law at China Jiliang University must treat them as specialized courses for high-standard development.
New situations and issues arising from the administration's practice of governing according to law have become our research topics, and we have the obligation to provide theoretical arguments and solutions. This is something rarely encountered by other law schools. Additionally, while quality and technical supervision and entry-exit inspection and quarantine have been merged at the national level, they remain relatively separate at the local level. Could this institutional fragmentation lead to inefficiencies in quality supervision? What are the root causes of this decentralization—is it due to practical needs or the lack of a unified theoretical framework? In the legal practice of quality supervision, inspection, and quarantine, individual laws have increasingly shown their lagging nature compared to the times. How should they be revised? In the implementation of standardization, how should conflicts arise between national, industry, local, and enterprise-level standards be resolved? Are concepts like technical regulations and trade barriers uniformly understood in China, and how can institutional frameworks be constructed to promote both foreign trade and domestic market regulation?
Major food safety incidents have been frequent, and the regulatory system has yet to be fully established. How should multiple management entities coordinate their responsibilities instead of competing for enforcement benefits, which could hinder work? The research and resolution of these issues constitute a significant driving force behind the formation of teaching and research characteristics at the School of Law at China Jiliang University.
China Jiliang University is located in Hangzhou, a beautiful city in Zhejiang Province. Serving the province's economy is our solemn duty. As an export-oriented economic powerhouse, Zhejiang Province has recently faced incidents such as the EU's ban on unsafe lighters, Spain's burning shoe incident, and Russia's gray market clearance. These events have prompted us to explore how the competitiveness of latecomers in the international trade landscape can be integrated into the cultural, ethical, and legal fabric of market competition to achieve harmonious and orderly growth.
As a leading regional economy, Zhejiang Province has proposed social development goals such as "Safe Zhejiang," "Credit Zhejiang," and "Rule of Law Zhejiang." This calls for us to consider whether developed regional economies can have priority choices in legal frameworks, regulations, and policies, similar to their economic strength, and how such choices should be made, especially given the severe imbalance in economic development between the eastern and western regions of China.
Zhejiang Province is one of China's most abundant and culturally rich regions, home to a series of geographically protected products such as Longjing tea, white chrysanthemum flowers, Jinhua ham, Shaoxing yellow wine, and Xiaoshan radish pickles. How can these products be effectively protected in practice? How should the "Regulations on the Protection of Geographically Protected Products" be improved?
Zhejiang is also a province with a strong manufacturing base, hosting a large number of OEM, OBM, and ODM companies. How should their product labeling be handled in enforcement practice? All these issues require in-depth investigation, diligent exploration, and comparative research to propose practical solutions and recommendations for government decision-making, management, and business development.
Law and legal studies are reflections of real-life situations. Their significance and value lie in actively responding to various issues and conflicts and providing solutions and pathways. The integration of industry-specific and local knowledge has become a unique resource for promoting the development of law schools. The planning and publication of the law school journal Legal and Trade Barriers is an effort to leverage this advantage and explore our own methods of legal education and research.
This step may seem naive and halting, but we are confident that the road ahead will only grow better. In the 1940s, Mao Zedong, in the inaugural editorial of China Worker, wrote: "Once a newspaper is launched, it must be treated as a serious undertaking and must be done well. This is not only the responsibility of those who run it but also of those who read it. Readers should offer feedback, writing short messages or articles to express their approval or disapproval—this is very important."
Now that Legal and Trade Barriers has been launched, we take this great leader's words as a guide: "Treat it as a serious undertaking and do it well." We sincerely hope to inspire our colleagues in the fields of law, economics, business, and beyond with this shared commitment.