Evan Osnos, the Beijing-based correspondent who writes The New Yorker’s “Letter from China” dispatches, spoke at the U.S.-Asia Law Institute (USALI) on February 28. Osnos, who served as the Chicago Tribune’s Beijing bureau chief before he joined The New Yorker as a staff writer in 2008, has reported on Chinese hacking, corruption, clean energy and the influx of African merchants.

On Thursday, March 8, 2012, the revised draft of the criminal procedure law was formally introduced to the national legislature in China, including stricter revisions that restrict the police’s power to secretly detain people–at least on paper. Professor Cohen’s commentary is available here.

Before the end of this month, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress will review the second draft of a proposal for comprehensive revisions to China’s Criminal Procedure Law. Despite some tweaks made under public pressure, it’s clear the revisions will be one step forward and two steps back for justice, at least for the politically controversial.

In China, when criminal investigators take someone into custody, there is no timely way to effectively challenge their misconduct. The suspect is helpless, and it is difficult for the anguished family to learn of any abuses. Suspects are usually detained throughout investigations, and investigators sometimes hold them for longer than law permits. Torture during interrogation, although banned, is rife. Investigators, usually police but also prosecutors in certain cases, often ignore legal requirements to notify the suspect’s family that he has been detained, where he is held and why, and to allow him to see a lawyer. Even a competent attorney has nowhere to turn for an independent review of official abuse.

The seventeenth annual Timothy Gelatt Dialogue on the Rule of Law in Asia will be held Monday November 7, 2011, from 2:00-6:30 pm in the Greenberg Lounge of NYU School of Law’s Vanderbilt Hall. This year’s Dialogue will celebrate not only the contributions of the late Tim Gelatt but also the 100th anniversary of China’s efforts to establish a modern legal system since the collapse of the Manchu Dynasty.