News from the Centre of Expertise on China and Korea

As of October 2023, Knut Benjamin Pißler, Head of the Institute’s Centre of Expertise on China and Korea, will commence a two-year position as Vice-Director at the Sino-German Institute for Law in Nanjing, where he will also assume lecture position sponsored by the German Academic Exchange Service (Deutschen Akademischen Austauschdienstes, DAAD). more

Knut Benjamin Pißler, who heads the Centre of Expertise on China and Korea at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law, and family law judge Thomas von Hippel of the Amtsgericht of Hamburg-Altona, have co-authored a comprehensive new revision of the country report for China of the standard reference work Internationales Ehe- und Kindschaftsrecht mit Staatsangehörigkeitsrecht (International marriage and filiation law including nationality law). The revision is a major update that includes the reforms enacted with the Chinese Civil Code, which entered into force on 1 January 2021. more

Knut Benjamin Pißler, Head of the Centre of Expertise on China and Korea at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law, was elected Vice-President of the German-Chinese Jurists‘ Association (DCJV) on 30 November 2021. more

Roughly six months after the enactment of the new Civil Code of the People's Republic of China, Knut Benjamin Pißler, Head of the Centre of Expertise on China and Korea at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law, has prepared the first German-language translation of the legislation. more

We mourn the passing of Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Frank Münzel, who died on 10 July 2020 at the age of 83. The legal scholar and sinologist worked from 1969 to 2002 as an expert on East Asia at our Institute. With the establishment of the China Unit, he laid an important cornerstone for research on Chinese law in Germany. more

In a joint project, Knut Benjamin Pißler, head of the Centre of Expertise on China and Korea at the Max Planck Institute for Private Law, and Katja Levy (TU Berlin) examine for the first time the situation of charitable foundations in China, exploring in particular their role in China’s authoritarian system. The findings of this study have been published in a work titled “Charity with Chinese Characteristics”. more

In China, it has since 2017 been possible to conduct certain court procedures entirely online. The filing of a claim as well as service of the claim on the opposing party is done digitally. The plaintiff and the defendant do not need to appear before court as the oral proceedings are conducted by video conference. On agreement of the parties, the judgment as well can be delivered electronically. more

In April 2018, China enacted a new Law on the participation of citizens in judicial proceedings conducted at the People’s Courts. In an article titled “Laienrichter in China nach dem neuen Schöffengesetz: Mehr als nur Dekoration?” [Lay judges in China under the new People’s Assessors Law: More than mere window-dressing?] Prof. Dr. Knut Benjamin Pißler, head of the China unit at the Max Planck Institute for Private Law, addresses the topics covered by the Law and the consequences that it is likely to carry. The article appears in Vol. 25, No. 3 (2018) of the German Journal of Chinese Law (ZChinR). more