"China Between Reform and Repression: Lawyers in the Fight for Political Liberalism
An enormous struggle is underway over China’s legal and political futures. Professor Halliday provided an overview of his research with Sida Liu on the interweaving of politics and practice in five segments of the practicing criminal defense and human rights bar in China from 2005 to 2015. Their book, 'Criminal Justice in China: The Politics of Lawyers at Work' (Cambridge University Press, 2016), engages the extensive scholarship on lawyers and political liberalism across the world, from 17th-century Europe to late 20th-century Korea and Taiwan. His presentation took special note of the 9 July 2015 crackdown on rights activist lawyers in China, the international response, and the import of this struggle for China’s future.
This seminar was co-hosted by the Asian Law Centre and the Centre for Contemporary Chinese Studies at the University of Melbourne.
Terry Halliday is Research Professor and Co-Director, Center on Law and Globalization, American Bar Foundation; Honorary Professor, School of Regulation and Global Governance, Australian National University; Adjunct Professor of Sociology, Northwestern University. His research and writing focuses on globalization and law in markets (global lawmaking, regulation, governance, finance, terrorism) and politics (lawyers, the legal complex and sites for struggle over basic legal freedoms). His China research and policy consultations have included professional regulation, corporate bankruptcy reforms, and revisions of the criminal procedure law.
His recent writings on China include “The Invisible Defender: Three Media Images of Chinese Criminal Defense Lawyers,” International Journal of the Legal Profession (with Cheng-Tong Lir Wang, Sida Liu, 2015); “The Trial of Li Zhuang: Chinese Lawyers’ Collective Action Against Populism,” Asian Journal of Law and Society, 1: 79-97 (with Sida Liu, Lily Liang); “ Political Liberalism and Political Embeddedness: Understanding Politics in the Work of Chinese Criminal Defense Lawyers”, Law and Society Review. Vol. 45: 1540-5893 (with Sida Liu); and “Birth of a Liberal Moment? Looking through a One-Way Mirror at Lawyers’ Defense of Criminal Defendants in China,” (with Sida Liu In Fighting for Political Freedom: Comparative Studies of the Legal Complex and Political Change, edited by Terence C. Halliday, Lucien Karpik, and Malcolm M. Feeley.
Professor Halliday’s books on the politics of the legal complex and political liberalism include: Terence C. Halliday, Lucien Karpik, Malcolm M. Feeley (eds). 2012. Fates of Political Liberalism in the British Post-Colony: The Politics of the Legal Complex. New York: Cambridge University Press; Terence C. Halliday, Lucien Karpik & Malcolm M. Feeley (Eds). 2007. Fighting for Political Freedom: Comparative Studies of the Legal Complex and Political Change. Oxford: Hart Press (Oñati International Series in Law and Society).
Professor Halliday has taught at the Australian National University and University of Chicago. He is a graduate of Massey University, New Zealand, University of Toronto and University of Chicago.