Harvard Law School China Law Association ( CLA) is excited to host Professor Mark Jia (J.D. ’16) of Georgetown Univers ity Law Center\, for a discussion of his upcoming paper\, “Law Power.”
< p>Professor Jia is a scholar of comparative and transnational law\, with pa rticular focus on the United States and China. His research broadly seeks t o understand the relationship between law and authoritarianism and between law and geopolitics. His work has won the 2022 Mark Tushnet Prize from the Association of American Law School’s Section on Comparative Law\, the 2024 Scholarship Prize from the American Society of International Law’s Internat ional Law and Technology Interest Group\, and the 2025 Privacy Papers for P olicymakers Award from the Future of Privacy Forum.A brief introduct ion of “Law Power\,” which Professor Jia will be discussing with attendees\ , is attached below. If you are interested in attending the event\, please RSVP. The Zoom link and draft paper will be circulated to those who RSVP by Tuesday April 14.
If you have any questions\, pleas e feel free to reach out to Shengdong Guo (sguo@sjd.law.harvard.edu)\, or Z eqing Li (zli@jd27.law.harvard.edu).
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“Law Power”
Inter national relations scholars have long debated the military\, economic\, and cultural dimensions of national power. Yet in new age of great power compe tition\, we lack a general theory of national legal power comparable to the se more familiar forms of national power. Drawing on legal scholarship acro ss many specific settings\, this Article introduces a general concept of la w power—a nation-state’s ability to use law to affect others to get what it wants. Law power can be soft\, hard\, or sharp\, and can involve local\, f oreign\, or international law. In today’s juridified geopolitics\, law powe r is a leading form of national power.
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