Legal and Trade Barriers (Volume 1)

Author: Wang Yanlin
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-03-20
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 obvious surplus of law school graduates have forced people to ask: Is the educational model of the current 300-plus law schools unified or diverse? What is the path for the development of law schools other than top-tier institutions? For a large number of engineering colleges that choose to establish law programs under the banner of "governing the country according to law," how can they grow their own unique characteristics within their engineering mother bodies? All these issues are questions that I had to ponder and explore after joining the China Jiliang University.
In my opinion, if the School of Law at China Jiliang University wants to stand out and secure a place in the fierce competition of legal discipline development in China, it must first cultivate irreplaceable or hard-to-replace characteristics to compensate for its late start and relatively weaker overall strength. To forge such characteristics, one must tap into the unique advantages of the law school's mother body—combining China Jiliang University's status as the only specialized institution within the former National Bureau of Technical Supervision and the current General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, along with its location in Zhejiang, a major economic province. By expanding research fields in both industry-specific knowledge and local knowledge, the law school can develop its own strengths in the margins, intersections, gaps, or emerging areas of legal research, thereby creating distinctive research directions, landmark achievements, and academic influence.
The General Administration of 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 terms of the law program, the "Nine Laws and One Regulation" that underpin the administration and enforcement practices of the General Administration must be treated as a specialized course with high standards of construction, rather than being glossed over in general legal education. The new situations and issues arising from the General 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 that other law schools rarely encounter.
Moreover, while quality technology supervision and inspection and quarantine have been merged at the national level, they remain relatively separated at the local level. Does this institutional arrangement lead to inefficiencies in quality supervision and quarantine work? What are the root causes of this local fragmentation—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. What revisions are needed? In the implementation of standardization, how should conflicts between national, industry, local, and enterprise-level standards be resolved? Are concepts such as technical regulations and trade barriers uniformly understood in China? How can a system be constructed to leverage their dual role in promoting foreign trade and regulating domestic markets? 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 affects work progress? 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 of China Jiliang University.
China Jiliang University is located in Hangzhou, a beautiful city in Zhejiang. Serving the province's economy is our solemn duty. As an export-oriented economic powerhouse, Zhejiang has recently faced incidents such as the EU's ban on unsafe lighters, Spain's shoe-burning incident, and Russia's gray market clearance. These events have prompted us to explore how the competitiveness of late-developing countries in the international trade landscape can be integrated into the cultural, ethical, and legal fabric of market competition, achieving harmonious and orderly growth.
As a leading regional economy, Zhejiang 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, regulatory, and policy matters, similar to their economic strength, and how such choices should be made, given the severe imbalance in economic development between the eastern and western regions of China. Zhejiang is also one of the provinces with abundant natural resources and a long history. It boasts a series of geographically protected products, including Longjing tea, Hangbai chrysanthemum, 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, home to numerous 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 and management, as well as for the development of enterprises.
Law and legal studies are reflections of real life. Their significance and value lie in actively responding to various issues and conflicts, providing solutions and pathways. The combination 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 Law and Trade Barriers is precisely an effort to leverage this advantage and explore our own methods of legal education and legal research.
This initial step may seem and uneven, but we are confident that the path will only grow better. In the 1940s, Mao Zedong, in the inaugural issue of China Worker, wrote: "Once a newspaper is launched, it must be treated as an important undertaking and must be done well. This is the responsibility not only 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 Law and Trade Barriers has been launched, we take this great leader's words as a guide, "treat it as an important undertaking and do it well." We sincerely hope to inspire our colleagues in the fields of law, economics, business, and others with this vision.