The continued pervasiveness of counterfeiting in China is not only a problem of law, but also one of enforcement. While China’s laws and regulations conform to the agreement on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights (TRIPS) and other widely accepted international principles, certain parts of China’s protection mechanism have proven ineffective. Common examples are the high standards for criminal liability of counterfeiters, the high burden of evidence to prove bad faith registrations, and the difficulty to prove damages in civil proceedings…

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By Han Dongfang 

Collective labour contracts have been developed and promoted by the Chinese government and the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) since the mid-1990s. Thus far, however, because of the lack of genuine worker participation in the contract negotiations, they have brought only limited benefit to China’s workers.

CLB believes free collective bargaining should be introduced into the collective contracts negotiating process as a means of not only protecting workers’ rights and interests but of also improving labour-management relations. Given the widespread abuse of workers’ rights and the often severe tensions that exist between labour and management in China today, there is now an increasingly urgent need to promote greater worker involvement in this process. Read the rest of “Breaking the Impasse: Promoting Worker Involvement in the Collective Bargaining and Contracts Process” or post a comment

A drawback of my, in itself interesting profession, is that I encounter a lot of lying in my daily work. Contrary to popular believe it is not so much the lawyers that do the lying. Although I have to admit lawyers are generally not easily persuaded to part with information, let alone the truth, I prefer to think of what we do as skilful editing of the information to fit a certain version of the truth. No harm in that. That is what lawyers are paid to do.

But in order to edit the information, you will have to obtain the information first. And that is not as easy as it may sound. First there is the filter of the client’s…

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“Private label products or services are typically those manufactured or provided by one company for offer under another company’s brand.” –Wikipedia. This is the name of the game for China and for the most part, the products you buy here in the United States are not really manufactured by the name on the label. In some instances most of the big box or clothing stores you frequent have an inventory almost entirely made up of their own products under their own brand or multiple unaffiliated brands. This is not just a game for the big boys, this can be accomplished with…

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Besides the human tragedy, there has always been a certain irony in the fact that the communist system has never been able to achieve its main goal: to bring prosperity to the masses.

More specifically in China, there first where the farmers that did not particularly benefited from the revolution that was undertaken in their name. And now, much to Beijing’s chagrin one imagines, one scandal after another regarding the maltreatment of workers hits the international press circuit.

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