Conference on Property Rights and China’s Transformation

The University of Chicago Center in Beijing
20th floor, Culture Plaza
No. 59A Zhong Guan Cun Street
Haidian District Beijing 100872

The issue of property rights has figured prominently in China’s rapid economic growth and attracted much scholarly attention from different perspectives. In this conference, a multidisciplinary effort was employed to dissect China’s growth and transformation centered on considerations of property rights.  Scholars from China, the United States, and elsewhere examined the history, evolution, and impact of property rights in China from the perspectives of economics, politics, sociology, and law.

Presentations were delivered in both English and Chinese with simultaneous interpretation provided.

中国人民大学、香港大学和芝加哥大学诚邀您参加6月17日—18日在中国人民大学法学院和芝加哥大学北京中心举办的“财产权与中国的发展变革”国际研讨会。届时，来自中国、美国、欧洲等地的学者将围绕经济发展变革背景下中国财产权的演进、土地所有制改革的问题、拆迁过程中的物权保护等话题从经济学、政治学、法学等视角多维度挖掘财产权领域存在的问题和对策。

此次会议为世界各地关注财产权问题的学者搭建了一个广泛交流、深入探讨的平台。在多学科共同研讨、东西方思维的碰撞下，相信本次会议一定会为中国财产权发展过程中遇到的问题进行深入剖析，并提出很多有益的对策，为未来中国经济发展、构建和谐社会贡献良策。

本次会议将提供全程同声传译，并为所有参会者提供午餐。

Organizer: Dali L. Yang (Department of Political Science), in collaboration with Renmin University of China Law School and University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law.

主办单位： 芝加哥大学法学院/芝加哥大学北京中心, 中国人民大学法学院, 香港大学法学院

08:10 Hotel Pickup (from Friendship Hotel to Mingde Building )
08:20 Registration
08:30-08:50 Opening Ceremony (Chair: Dali YANG)

Welcome Remarks:
•   HAN Dayuan, Dean, Renmin University of China Law School
•   Michael SCHILL, Dean, The University of Chicago Law School
•    ZHANG Xianchu, Vice Dean, University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law
08:50-09:00 Group Photo
09:10-09:40 Keynote Address: WANG Liming

Chair: Michael SCHILL
“规范拆迁，保障物权” (Regulating Demolition and Protecting Property Rights）

09:40-10:00 Q & A
10:00-10:15 Coffee Break
10:15-11:45 Historical Development of Property Rights in China

Chair: Dali YANG
•    Donald CLARKE, China’s Stealth Urban Land Revolution?
•    Andrew MERTHA, From “Rustless Screws” to “Nail Houses”:The Evolution of Property Rights in China
•    Jacques DELISLE Types of “Rights” and Law that “Leads” and “Lags”:  Hohfeld’s Revenge, the Peculiar Roles of Law and Political Discretion in China’s Evolving Property Rights Regime

Discussants: Tom GINSBURG; Carl MINZNER

12:00-13:30 Lunch (Fengshang Restaurant near the West Gate of Renmin University;峰尚餐厅）
Pickup (to Beijing Center)

17:00-18:00 Reception

Conference Adjourns

SPEAKER AND ATTENDEE BIOGRAPHIES

Andrew MERTHA is an Associate Professor of the Department of Government, Cornell University. Mertha’s Ph.D. (2001) is from the University of Michigan. Professor Mertha is a core faculty member in the Cornell East Asia Program and the Cornell Southeast Asia Program. He specializes in Chinese and Cambodian politics, particularly on political institutions, the policy process, and the exercise of power. Also, Professor Mertha is on the Editorial Committee for the Journal of Comparative Politics and is on the Board of Directors for the Center for Khmer Studies. He is currently working on an analysis of China’s relations with Cambodia, specifically focusing on Chinese foreign aid, military assistance, commerce, and trade. He is also working on mapping the institutions of the policy making process in Democratic Kampuchea from 1975 to 1979.  He has lived in China for seven years, from 1988 to the present.

Carl MINZNER is an Associate Professor of Law in Washington University. Before joining the law faculty, he served as senior counsel for the Congressional–Executive Commission on China and was an International Affairs Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He also served as a Yale–China Legal Education fellow at the Xibei Institute of Politics and Law in Xi’an. He previously practiced intellectual property law in California for the Palo Alto firm of McCutchen & Doyle, then clerked for the Hon. Raymond Clevenger, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. His published works include articles on Chinese citizen petitioning institutions and social unrest, reforms to the regulations governing Chinese civil society organizations, and Communist Party management of judicial and government institutions.

Dali L. YANG is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago, founding Faculty Director of the University of Chicago Center in Beijing. An engineering graduate from Beijing Science and Technology University, Yang received his Ph.D. in political science from Princeton University, specializing in international relations and comparative politics. He joined the University of Chicago faculty in 1992. Professor Yang’s research interests are political institutions, political economy and political behavior, with special reference to China. Professor Yang has also been a consultant to industry, government agencies, and the World Bank.

Donald C. CLARKE is a Professor of Law of George Washington University. Professor Clarke holds a B.A. from Princeton University, an M.Sc. from the University of London, and a J.D. from Harvard University. He is a member of the New York Bar and the Council on Foreign Relations. Professor Clarke is fluent in Mandarin Chinese, and has published extensively in journals such as the China Quarterly and American Journal of Comparative Law on subjects ranging from Chinese criminal law and procedure to corporate governance. His recent research has focused on Chinese legal institutions and the legal issues presented by China’s economic reforms.

Eva PILS is an Associate Professor of Chinese University of Hong Kong. Eva Pils studied in Heidelberg, London and Beijing, and holds a PhD in law from the University of London. Prior to joining the Faculty of Law of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, she held part-time teaching and visiting positions at Cornell Law School, New York University Law School, and University College London. Her scholarship focuses on human rights and China, with publications addressing the role and situation of Chinese human rights defenders, property law and land rights in China, the status of migrant workers, the Chinese petitioning system and conceptions of justice in China. Eva is co-director of the CUHK Centre for Rights and Justice and a Nonresident Senior Fellow of the U.S. Asia Law Institute at New York University.

FANG Shaokun is the President of Yantai University of China. He received his LL.B. degree from Liaoning University in 1985, and his LL.M. from Peking University in 1987. After several years working in Yantai University, he went to Renmin University to pursue his LL.D. degree, which he received in 2003. His area of interest includes Property Law, Estate Law, Commercial Law, Contract Law, and Tort Law. He is a leading expert in Property Law, especially in Usufructuary Right.

FENG Yujun is a Professor of Law at Renmin University of China. He also serves multiple positions at RUC Law school including being a Academic Supervisor for LL.D. Candidates, Assistant to the Dean, Secretary General, JM Candidates Commission, Editor in Chief of Chaoyang Law Review, and Researcher of the Law and Globalization Research Center. Professor FENG has also published widely on Chinese Law and Economics, and introduced and translated several books to the Chinese Law Academia. His research interest lies in the area of Law and Economics, Legal Realism, Comparative Economic law, Post-modern Jurisprudence, Theory of Legal Globalization, East-Asian Legal Philosophy, Regional Legal Problems and News and Information Protection Law.

Fubing SU is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Vassar College. He holds a B.A. and an M.A. from Nankai University and M.A. and Ph.D. from University of Chicago. His teaching interests include comparative politics, political economy, East Asian security, and Chinese politics. His research concerns contemporary Chinese political and economic developments, including state-business relations, institutional changes in villages, workplace safety regulations, bureaucratic rules, and gender inequality in politics.

GUO Mingrui is the former President of Yantai University of China, received his LL.B. degree from Peking University in 1981. He then became a faculty in Peking University for ten years and got his LL.D. degree from Renmin University in 1995. His area of interest lies in Tort Law, Property Law, Security Law, Contract Law, and Inheritance Law. He is recognized as the leading scholar in the area of Property Law in China.

HAN Dayuan is the Dean of Renmin University of China Law School and Deputy Director of the Constitutional Law Institute of China Law Society. He received his B.A degree from Jilin University in 1984, and his LL.M degree from Renmin University of China Law School in 1987, after which he joined the faculty of Renmin University Law School. In 1994 he received his LL.D from Renmin University. In 1998, he was a visiting scholar at Harvard University. Han was selected to be one of the Ten Outstanding Young Jurists by China Law Society in 1999. In 2005, he was elected as one of the Distinguished Contemporary Chinese Jurists. In October 2007, he was elected President of the Chinese Constitutional Law Society. Han was appointed Dean of Renmin University of China Law School in April 2009. His research interests lie in the area of Constitutional Law and Administrative Law.

Jacques DELISLE is a Stephen A. Cozen Professor of Law, Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, received his A.B. from Princeton University, and J.D. from Harvard University. Professor DELISLE’s research and teaching focus on contemporary Chinese law and politics, including legal reform and its relationship to economic reform and political change in China, the international status of Taiwan and cross-Strait relations, China’s engagement with the international order, and U.S.-China relations.

Jean OI is the William Haas Professor in Chinese Politics in the Department of Political Science at Stanford University, as well as Director of the Stanford China Program (SCP), Professor of Political Science and senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. Professor Oi’s work focuses on comparative politics, Chinese political economy, and corporate restructuring and governance in Asia.

Joyce MAN is the Director of Peking University-Lincoln Land Institute, Associate Professor of Public Finance and Policy Analysis at the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University. Professor Man received a B.A. from Beijing Foreign Studies University in 1984, an M.S. from Johns Hopkins University in 1989 and a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University, 1993. Her professional interests lie in the areas of public finance, urban and regional economics, international trade, economic development, public budgeting and financial management.

JIANG Junyan is an admitted Ph.D. student at the University of Chicago Political Science Department. He received his B.A. at the University of Hong Kong in Economics and Finance and an M.A in Social Sciences at the University of Chicago. He served as a Research Assistant for Department of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Hong Kong in 2008, for Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in 2009, and for Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago in 2010.

Lee FENNELL is a Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School. Professor Fennell received her JD magna cum laude from Georgetown University Law Center in 1990. Since 2007, she has been a professor at the University of Chicago Law School, where she served as a Bigelow Fellow from 1999 to 2001. In the intervening years, she taught at the University of Texas School of Law (2001-2004) and at the University of Illinois College of Law (2004-2007). She has also held visiting positions at Yale Law School, NYU School of Law, and the University of Virginia School of Law. Before teaching law, she practiced at Pettit & Martin, the State and Local Legal Center, and the Virginia School Boards Association. Her teaching and research interests include property, torts, land use, housing, social welfare law, state and local government law, and public finance.

LIU Shouying is a Research Fellow at Rural Department of State Council Development Research Center of China. He holds B.A and M.A of Economics in Fudan University of China. He was a visiting scholar in Madison Land Tenure Center, University of Wisconsin. His research interests lie in infrastructural changes, land system and economics of development.

Michael SCHILL is the Dean and Harry N. Wyatt Professor at the University of Chicago Law School. Dean Schill received his AB summa cum laude in 1980 from Princeton University, and his JD from Yale Law School in 1984. Before joining the faculty of the University of Chicago Law School, Dean Schill was Dean and Professor of Law at the UCLA School of Law, the Wilf Family Professor in Property Law at New York University School of Law, and Professor of Urban Planning at NYU’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. He has also been a visiting professor at Harvard Law School. Dean Schill has written or edited three books and over 40 articles on various aspects of housing, real estate and property law. He is an active member of a variety of public advisory councils, editorial boards and community organizations. Dean Schill is a national expert on real estate and housing policy, deregulation, finance and discrimination.

Omri Ben-SHAHAR received his PhD in economics and SJD degree from the Harvard University. He earned his BA (economics) and LLB from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Before coming to Chicago, he was the Kirkland & Ellis Professor of Law and Economics at the University of Michigan. Prior to that he taught at Tel-Aviv University. He was also a judge on Israel’s Antitrust Court, and clerked at the Supreme Court of Israel. He teaches Contracts, Sales, Insurance Law, Consumer Law, eCommerce, Law and Economics, and Game Theory and the Law. He writes in the fields of contract law and consumer law. He is the author of a forthcoming book, “More Than You Wanted to Know: The Failure of Mandated Disclosure.”

Peter P.S. HO is Chair Professor of Chinese Economy and Development and Director of the Modern East Asia Research Centre. Before taking up this position, Ho was Chair Professor of International Development Studies and Director of the Centre for Development Studies at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands. Ho serves on various high-level commissions as an advisor for the Chinese and Dutch government, the OECD, the EU, and the private sector. Furthermore, he provides frequent advice and interviews to the media, including the BBC, The Economist, the American PBS, Volkskrant, NRC Handelsblad, and the National TV News (NOS Journal). Professor Ho has published 10 books with (amongst others) Oxford University Press, Routledge and Blackwell Publishers. He has also published widely in the leading ISI-rated journals of Development, Environmental and Area Studies, and is a highly-cited researcher in the social sciences and humanities with publications in journals with impact factors ranging from 3.0 to 8.25.

Sida LIU is the Assistant Professor of Sociology and Law at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Research Fellow at Shanghai Jiao Tong University KoGuan Law School. Professor LIU has a law degree from Peking University (2002) and a Ph.D. degree in Sociology from the University of Chicago (2009). He conducted extensive research on the Chinese legal profession as an empirical case for understanding how social structures such as professions, market, and the state are produced by two general social processes, boundary-work and exchange. His research interests focus on the historical change, social structure, and political mobilization of the legal profession.

TAO Ran is Nonresident Senior Fellow of Foreign Policy of Brookings-Tsinghua Center and a professor in the School of Economics and the Director of China Center for Public Economics and Governance at Renmin University in Beijing. He holds a B.S. in Economic Geography and Urban/Regional Planning from Lanzhou University in 1993, an M.S. of Urban and Regional Economics from Peking University in 1996, an M.A. of Economics from University of Chicago in 1997 and a Ph.D. of Economics from University of Chicago in 2002. As a specialist in the Chinese economy, he has published on the political economy of China’s economic transition, land and household registration reform in China’s urbanization, local governance and public finance in rural China. His research interests lie in the areas of political economy of Chinese economy and transition, urbanization and land reform, public finance and local governance.

Tom GINSBURG is a Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School. Professor Ginsburg holds BA, JD, and PhD degrees from the University of California at Berkeley. He has served as a visiting professor at a number of universities worldwide, including University of Tokyo, Seoul National University, and the University of Pennsylvania. He currently co-directs the Comparative Constitutions Project, an effort funded by the National Science Foundation to gather and analyze the constitutions of all independent nation-states since 1789. His research focuses on Comparative and International Law from an interdisciplinary perspective.

WANG Liming is the Vice President of Renmin University of China. Prof. Wang received his LL.B. degree from Hubei Institute of Finance and Economics (now known as Zhongnan University of Economics and Law) in 1981, and his LL.M and LL.D from Renmin University of China Department of Law in 1984 and 1990 respectively. He has been a visiting scholar at Harvard Law School and a lecturer at Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan. He is currently recognized as a highly prestigious scholar of Civil Law in China, and has published numerous papers and books on various subjects, including Property Law, Contract Law and Tort Law.

WANG Weiguo is the Dean of the School of Civil, Commercial and Economic Law of China University of Political Science and Law. Professor Wang received his LL.B and LL.M degrees in Southwest University of Politics and Law and his LL.D in China University of Political Science and Law, where he majored in civil law. He was a visiting scholar at Uppsala University of Sweden and at the University of British Columbia in Canada. His areas of interest include Civil Law, Commercial Law and Economic Law. He has published several books and papers on the subject of Enterprise Law, Bankruptcy Law, Property Law, Contract Law and Tort Law.

Yasheng HUANG, International Program Professor of Chinese Economy and Business and Professor of Global Economics and Management at MIT. Professor HUANG holds a B.A in Government from Harvard College in 1985 and a Ph.D in Government from Harvard University in 1991. He founded and runs the MIT China Lab and India Lab. He has held and received prestigious fellowships, such as the National Fellowship at Stanford University, and the Social Science Research Council-MacArthur Fellowship. Huang is a member of the MIT Entrepreneurship Center, a fellow at the Center for Chinese Economic Research and the Center for China in the World Economy at Tsinghua University, and a World Economic Forum fellow. Huang has also served as a consultant to the World Bank. He is an expert in International Business, Political Economy, and International Management.

ZHANG Xianchu is a Professor of Law and Associate Dean of Faculty of Law in the University of Hong Kong; co-director of HKU-Peking University Legal Research Center and Deputy Director of Institute for China and Global Development. He holds LLB in China University of Political Science and Law of China, MCL and J.D. in Indiana University, Bloomington. He is an arbitrator of China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission (CIETAC) and a trustee of the Legal Education Trust Fund of Hong Kong. His research areas include Commercial Law, Chinese law and Comparative Law.

ZHANG Xiaobo is Senior Research Fellow of International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and leader of IFPRI’s rural-urban linkage program. He earned a B.S. degree in Mathematics from Nankai University, an M.S. in Economics from Tianjin University of Economics and Finance, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Applied Economics and Management from Cornell University. He is a co-editor of the Chinese Economic Review. He was selected as president of the Chinese Economists Society from 2005 to 2006. His research mainly focuses on the Chinese economy. He has published widely in leading economic journals, including Journal of Political Economy, Journal of International Economics, Journal of Public Economics, and Journal of Development Economics.

ZHOU Qiren, Professor of China Center of Economic Research (CCER) under National School of Development in Peking University. Professor Zhou received M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles, and his B.A. from Renmin University of China. He has strong teaching experiences in Economic Organization and Economic Systems, Development Economics, New Institutional Economics, and the System Environment of China’s Business. He is well known for his research in the area of Property Rights, Regulation and Deregulation Reform, Firm Theory and China’s Institutional Transformation, and Monopoly. His publications appear in a wide range of journals, including Public Journal, International Economic Review, Compare, and Management World. He is the author of a large number of books including Property Rights and Institutional Transformation – the Chinese Experience, Economics in the Real World, and Competition among Telecommunications.