Introduction to Chinese Civil and Commercial Law

This course is an on-campus course combined with online group discussion seminars with law students from China.  

The course will facilitate collaboration and interaction between students from different countries and cultures. In addition to the lectures, there will be seminar groups led by advanced Chinese students from Shandong University School of Law and East China University of Political Science and Law. In the seminar groups, students from all around the world will engage in discussion of relevant topics taught in the course, bringing into the course an important intercultural learning experience, in addition to the learning benefits students normally receive from the course. 

The course aims to provide the students with a comprehensive and practical overview of Chinese civil and commercial law and the legal system of China. China is the most populated country with the second largest GDP in the world and is also a very important business partner of Norway and Europe. In the past 30 years or so, China witnessed a dramatic change in every aspect of the society, including a significant change in the legal system. It will be very helpful to the students who are interested in the Sino-European business to have some basic and practical understanding of the current Chinese civil and commercial law. To meet this need of the students, this course will focus on the Chinese legal system, especially civil and commercial law, from both the theoretical and practical approach. 

The current Legal system of China is the result of evolution of culture, economy, society, and politics. Even though China is a country with very long history, the modern Chinese civil and commercial can be traced back to the transplantation of western laws. In the beginning of 20th century, facing the crisis of colonization, China began her painful reform of the society and transplantation of modern law, which followed the model of civil law countries such as Japan and Germany. After 1949, the Soviet law casted huge shadow on Chinese law too. And in the past 4 decades, China took the rout of "socialism market economy", to which the rule of law is essential. In order to meet the needs of economy, China introduced civil and commercial law from developed countries and established its current legal system. 

Like in other civil law countries, Chinese laws are mostly statutory laws. With the constitution as the basis, the legal system consists of department laws such as civil law, commercial law, criminal law, administrative law, labour law, economics law and procedural laws (civil, criminal and administrative), etc. 

This course will spend more time on the laws of business in China, i.e., civil law, commercial law, labour law, intellectual property law and economic law, which may be more interesting and useful to the students who would like to understand Chinese law for the trade and cooperation with Chinese enterprises. Meanwhile, the course will give some definition of the situation and hot spots of legal studies and research in China, in order to help those who are interested in the comparative research of Chinese law. 

In addition to the static laws, the course will also focus on the functioning of Chinese legal system. The course will provide a brief definition of how the governments, courts and other authority bodies work and how the laws are applied. 

Furthermore, the students will be introduced to the field of intercultural understanding and communication skills. Intercultural competence is the capability to acquire targeted knowledge, skills and attitudes that lead to noticeable behavior and communication that are both effective and appropriate in intercultural interactions. The students will develop and practice these skills through online student-led seminar groups where they will discuss relevant topics with classmates from all around the world. 

To achieve the goals above, the course is designed to have the following contents: 

• A brief introduction to Chinese history, culture, society and economy, transplantation and modernization of Chinese law; 
• The organization and function of governmental branches and judicial system; 
• Civil law I: General previsions and property law; 
• Civil law II: Contract, unjust enrichment, voluntary service; 
• Civil law III:  Family law and law of succession; 
• Civil Law IV: Personality rights and tort Liability; 
• Commercial law I: Company law; 
• Commercial law II: Banking law, security law, law of negotiable instruments, maritime law; 
• Labour Law, social security law, economic law, intellectual property law; 
• Civil Procedural law; 
• Basic introduction to intercultural understanding and communication skills. 

By the end of the course, the students will have acquired the following knowledge, skills and competence: 

Knowledge 

After successfully completing the course students will have a general knowledge of 

• the social, economic and historical background of the Chinese legal system; 
• the functioning of Chinese governmental authorities, especially court system; 
• a basic understanding of the Chinese Civil Code; 
• the main functioning of commercial, economic law and IP law in China.    

After successfully completing the course, students will be familiar with 

• the judicial pathway for dispute dissolution in China;  
• the general principles of civil and commercial law; 
• the major legal issues concerning doing business in China; 
• the protection of Intellectual property in China; 
• Identifying and utilizing the legal procedure in the application of Chinese civil and commercial law 

Skills 

After completing the course, the student should be able to identify, reflect upon, address and formulate a reasoned opinion on issues of Chinese law. 

This entails that students must be able to 

• identify, and formulate Chinese law issues based on comprehensive and complex fact; 
• find and address relevant sources of law in English language, and carry out legal analysis of major Chinese civil law issues based on primary and secondary sources in a balanced way; 
• identify sound position through clarification of tensions between different types of arguments that are valid under Chinese civil and commercial law;
• analyze and make use of the legal framework in the business cooperation with Chinese partners according to Chinese law. 

The student must also be able to convey and evaluate legal analyzes and points of view in the Chinese law context through 

• systematically prepared independent written analyzes; 
•     orally present legal argumentation; 
•     to comment on and evaluate other students¿ analyzes and to receive and make use of such comments; 
•     to work with others in groups to analyze Chinese civil and commercial law issues 

General competence 

After completion of the course, students shall have 

• a broad and accurate understanding of Chinese civil and commercial law;  
• an insight into the Chinese legal system and its function in the development of the society and economy in the country; 
• the intercultural understanding and communication skills with Chinese lawyers; 
• a good starting point to facilitate his/her further study in specific legal issues of Chinese private law; 
• basic knowledge for conducting comparative study between European and Chinese private law.