The Establishment of The Centre For Chinese Legal Studies At The Shaikh Ahmad Hassan School of Law (Sahsol), Lums

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CENTRE FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CENTRE FOR CHINESE LEGAL STUDIES AT THE SHAIKH AHMAD HASSAN SCHOOL OF LAW (SAHSOL), LUMS1 By Dr. Parvez Hassan2 Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah, your Excellency, Mr. Wang Jiang, from the Consulate General of the People's Republic of China, Professor Li Fei, Vice President, Wuhan University, Mr. Justice Sardar Muhammad Shamim Khan, Chief Justice, Lahore High Court, Syed Babar Ali, and other members of the Management Committee, LUMS, Dr. Arshad Ahmad, Vice Chancellor. LUMS, Dr. Kamran Asdar, Acting Dean, SAHSOL, and Distinguished Guests: All my life, I have loved to dream. And, today, happily and most joyously, one of my dreams comes true. At the ground-breaking ceremony of this building of the Shaikh Ahmad Hassan School of Law (SAHSOL) on 5 April 2014, I had expressed the hope: SAHSOL will, Insha Allah, lead change in legal education to be the nation's law school with a difference. It will constantly review its offered courses to accord with the changing needs of the future. It will be driven by the excellence of its core full-time faculty supported by the experience of the field offered by an adjunct faculty. Its governance will be merit-driven and a need-based financial aid policy will enable access to the disadvantaged. I had then also held out the vision of a Centre of International Legal Studies at SAHSOL. "The effort will be", I undertook, "to create a hub of Chinese Legal Studies in the region enabled by an exchange of faculty and students from law schools in China". At the inauguration of the SAHSOL in this Building, seventeen months later, on 12 September 2015. I reiterated in this very Room: The building that we open today has three (3) floors.... The third floor ... has been built to accommodate the future vision and needs of SAHSOL. My own hope and effort, that we have already begun with two Chinese Universities, is to use a part of the third floor for a Centre of Chinese Legal Studies. With the growing Chinese interest in the region, SAHSOL can seek to position itself as the leading legal research hub for students and professors particularly from China, Pakistan and the Central Asian Republics. The foundational meeting for the Centre for Chinese Legal Studies took place on 27 June 2015 in Guiyang, Guizhou, China. Four (4) friends who had worked together over years on international environmental law matters under the umbrella of the World Commission on Environmental Law, IUCN. which I headed from 1990 to 1996, met on my suggestion, in the sidelines of the Eco Forum Global Annual Conference Guiyang 2015 to plan for a Chinese Centre at SAHSOL. Professor Ben Boer, an Australian academic, had provided important leadership at the Wuhan University Law School. Professor Qin Tianbao at that time already had important responsibilities in the law program of Wuhan. Professor Wang Xi was a Law Professor at the Shanghai Jiao Tong University but my friendship with him had started when I first visited him as a guest lecturer at Wuhan in November 1992 when he was a part of the Wuhan law faculty. I requested these three (3) friends to help me with the Chinese Centre at SAHSOL. The Guiyang "hand shake" in June 2015 led to the visits of these three (3) friends to Lahore and the signing of the MOU with Wuhan, three (3) years later, in June 2018, to "establish a Centre of Chinese Legal Studies" at SAHSOL. In my thank you note dated 30 June 2015 to these three friends, I highlighted: With the unique relationship between Pakistan and China and China's massive plans to develop infrastructure in Pakistan (with the help of Chinese companies) which will also open up the access to the Central Asian States, it will be exciting to position the leading Centre for Chinese Legal Studies in the region at SAHSOL. The MOU emphasized: * The pioneering initiative at SAHSOL is One Belt One Road and CPEC-driven. * The MOU is for an initial term of five (5) years. * Wuhan will help build academic capacity in Pakistan for the study and teaching of introductory and advance courses on Chinese Law. * The Centre will plan on student and faculty exchanges between SAHSOL and Wuhan and other leading law schools in China in the coming years. * The first course on "Introduction to the Chinese Legal System" will commence in the academic year, 2018-19. Today, we celebrate the first step to the realization of the vision of the MOU and the establishment of the Centre of Chinese Legal Studies at SAHSOL. I warmly welcome Professor Li Fei. Vice President, Wuhan University. and the Wuhan team present here today, Professor Ben Boer, Professor Xiang Yan, and Professor Yuan Kang, who are teaching the first course on Chinese Law at SAHSOL in this academic session, 2018-19, as planned. We reaffirm that the Centre is driven by the One Belt One Road initiative to build a legal capacity for the implementation of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). We saw early the need for this support to a commitment by the Peoples Republic of China of a multi-billion dollar master plan to provide a corridor from Kashgar to Gwadur with a state of the art port at Gwadur with multiple energy projects and a supporting infrastructure of highways, railroads, industrial parks, wind farms, and economic zones. The expected impact of the CPEC activities in Pakistan is popularly described to be "transformational" and a "game changer". We anticipate the Centre to attract students and faculty from law schools in the Asian Republics (including Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan and Turkmenistan); the vision includes CPEC scholarships. In the next 5 years or a little more, SAHSOL should be handling over 500 regular LL.B students plus LL.M students, and students from Pakistan, Asian Republics, and China enrolled for the Chinese and Pakistan comparative legal studies. There is an ambitious plan for expanding the Chinese Centre into meeting the evolving needs of the CPEC experience. Studies at the Chinese Centre will use the full complement of the regular law courses and faculty of SAHSOL. When, about six (6) decades ago, I graduated with a law degree from the Punjab University, Pakistan's economy, politics and business opportunities were all U.S.-centric. Our foreign policy was entrenched in our alignment with the U.S. in the Cold War against Communism with our membership of SEATO and CENTO. The U2 flew its ill-fated spy mission over the Soviet Union from the Badaber Air Base in Peshawar. U.S. investments in Pakistan in those days were facilitated by the 1959 Friendship Commerce and Navigation Treaty and the 1959 Avoidance of Double Taxation Treaty between Pakistan and the U.S. The U.S. Universities attracted many young Pakistani lawyers like myself and I even committed to lawyering on Wall Street in New York to better serve U.S. and Pakistani clients on return to Lahore. These were the obvious choices in the 1960's. But today's is a totally different world. Beijing and Shanghai are replacing New York and Washington D.C. for the urgency of our economic and political needs and, more importantly, anchored and reinforced by our ever-green, all-weather, and time-tested friendship with China. During my law practice in the last five (5) decades, it was typical to help General Tire, Intercontinental Hotels and other U.S. giants in their investments in Pakistan as it is now becoming common place for Pakistani lawyers to help the Chinese conglomerates, China Gezhouba Group Company, China Machinery Export Corporation, China Power Hub Generation Company, China Railway Group Limited, Shanghai Electric, China Overseas Ports Holding Company and the China Three Gorges Corporation, to name just a few, in their projects in Pakistan. Law students and lawyers in Pakistan today have a changed environment in view of the welcome opportunities and challenges presented by CPEC. The CPEC investment in Pakistan already requires lawyers in Pakistan to be generally familiar with basic Chinese legal concepts and for lawyers in China dealing with Chinese interests in Pakistan to be generally familiar with basic legal concepts of our country. These enhance the capacity for the implementation of CPEC. And, this is precisely what the Centre for Chinese Legal Studies at SAHSOL will, hopefully, set out to do, progressing to specific needs as they arise. I foresee a strong component of the Centre addressing Dispute Resolution Mechanisms and supporting arbitral bodies dedicated to CPEC-related disputes. Skills required will be the drafting of the legal and regulatory framework for CPEC Projects including for treaties for investment protection, avoidance of double taxation, laws for special zones. deep sea port at Gwadur, infrastructure development, and financing by regional and international organizations, immigration, education and health needs of the CPEC personnel in Pakistan. The needs of Chinese investors include drafting of agreements, constructions contracts and joint ventures with clauses on applicable law and dispute resolution mechanisms. There are international precedents for these but these are models of Western countries and do not cater for the specific orientation of the Pakistan-China relationship on CPEC. This menu will also apply to Pakistani investors in China. Faculty at the Centre will first be drawn from specialists outside Pakistan identified by Wuhan but the effort will be to progressively develop a "home grown" academic capacity. Efforts have also been initiated to involve the increasing number of Pakistan students pursuing graduate law programs at Chinese Universities. But our vision does not stop there. We hope that the Central Asian Republics that are also in the One Belt One Road trajectory will benefit from the Centre in a mutual exchange of students and faculty. We are committed to include them in our program as early as in the next 2-3 years. As we grow and progress, with Wuhan's support, we will draw other Universities in China to support the Centre with student and faculty exchanges. We are also reaching out to other Universities with Chinese Centres in and outside Pakistan for collaboration and support. Professor Matthews Erie from Oxford University will be giving a course on Chinese Business Law in spring 2020. We also expect to similarly reach out to the National University of Singapore in Singapore. The Centre for Chinese Legal Studies at SAHSOL is finally on the road and I hope that you will all join me in the prayer for its success as an important facilitator of the One Belt One Road initiative and CPEC and for better understanding among peoples in this region. In the past, I have used this forum to state my next dreams. The one more urgent and blessed is to see the Centre that we inaugurate today as a busy academic hub of excellence for Chinese legal studies in Pakistan and the region. I see that we will have students and faculty from Pakistan, China, Central Asian Republics, and other countries to enrich the diversity and pluralism of our campus. I know that we will get there - and soon - Inshah Allah, with your support and prayers.