People
Mark Wu
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Harvard Law School welcomes the LL.M. Class of 2021 to campus
November 2, 2022
Dean John F. Manning ’85 invited members of the LL.M. Class of 2021, whose LL.M. year was entirely virtual, to experience life on campus and connect with each other in person.
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Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is an existential crisis, says European Commission trade leader
October 19, 2022
Russia’s war in Ukraine is both a threat to democratic values and an opportunity for global leadership, said European Commission Executive Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis, speaking to an audience of students and faculty at Harvard Law School.
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‘Democracy and open society, human dignity, doesn’t necessarily win — we have to work for it’
April 13, 2022
The Harvard International Law Journal recently hosted a discussion with Stavros Lambrinidis, ambassador of the European Union to the United States.
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North Dakota’s State Investment Board Gives The Green Light to Stop Investing in Russia
March 8, 2022
After getting enormous pressure from the public, as well as from members of both side of the isle in North Dakota, in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the State Investment Board convened a special meeting Thursday to discuss divesting its Russian holdings. During executive session, the SIB voted unanimously to pursue the divestment strategy. ... News Radio reached out to Harvard Professor Mark Wu on any implications that SB 2291 could have in the process. “The decision at hand concerns divestment, as opposed to investment. While the state law places restrictions on the State Investment Board’s investment decisions, it does not place similar restrictions on its divestment decisions.” Professor Wu continued, “What this means practically is that the state investment board could take geopolitical considerations into account for a divestment decision, but should it then decide to divest, the existing law would place restrictions on what the board can and cannot do in deciding how to re-invest the proceeds of the divestment.” Professor Wu is the Henry L. Stimson Professor at Harvard Law School, where he specializes in international trade and international economic law.
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When Nixon went to China
February 17, 2022
On the 50th anniversary of President Nixon's visit, China experts William Alford and Mark Wu discuss whether the president may be getting too much credit for his history-making journey.
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Katherine Tai represents
July 23, 2021
In her new role as U.S. trade representative, Tai ’01 brings legal expertise, political savvy, and a deep commitment to American workers.
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Salzburg Cutler Fellows forge online connections
May 18, 2021
The ninth annual Salzburg Cutler Fellows Program brought together 53 law students from across the U.S., including four from Harvard Law School, to explore the future of public and private international law.
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Since President Joe Biden took office in January, dozens of Harvard Law community members, including faculty and alumni, have been tapped to serve in high-profile positions in his administration
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Sharing stress strategies
October 14, 2020
For ABA Mental Health Day, five faculty share struggles from their own law school days and offer options for coping and support.
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Death of trade deal with China could be ‘October surprise’
September 14, 2020
On Tuesday, Danny Diaz, who ran former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s ill-fated 2016 presidential campaign, told POLITICO’s Tim Alberta that if there’s an “October surprise” in this election, “it’s something abroad. It’s a foreign policy-oriented development.” We asked the experts: if it’s China-related, what might it look like? A Phase One trade deal collapse is the most likely China-related event to upend the U.S. election. Harvard Law School’s Mark Wu says President Donald Trump could declare China “off track in meeting the purchase commitments.” Eurasia Group’s Paul Triolo says Trump “has become progressively less interested in the trade deal,” while E14 Fund’s Calvin Chin says ditching the deal is the “easiest to pull off [with] good electoral bang for the buck.” The Bay Area Economic Council’s Sean Randolph tells China Watcher that “while this might look like a failure at one level, Trump could try to show that he's in control, tough on China, and looking out for U.S. interests.” The deal would be (bureaucratically) easy to unwind, according to Asia Society’s Wendy Cutler. “Legally, the agreement requires a 60-day advance notification period before withdrawal,” she tells China Watcher, “but as we’ve seen to date the legalities would be overshadowed by a surprise announcement.” Trump can get the electoral pop from an announcement his administration intends to leave, even if it’s not official until after the election. U.S. and Chinese multinational companies could be frozen out. Heritage Foundation’s Klon Kitchen says China could block a TikTok sale and possibly remove “one or several industry leaders” among U.S. tech companies in China. Schmidt Futures’ Christopher Kirchhoff says Chinese ruler Xi Jinping could “move to ban Apple products in China.” Syracuse University’s Mary Lovely says a Trump move against WeChat could see Beijing retaliating against U.S. firms in China.
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Making lemonade from lemons
September 1, 2020
When the coronavirus pandemic handed him lemons, Stefan Martinić LL.M. ’21 made lemonade—literally—and invited his Harvard Law School LL.M. classmates around the globe to join him for an online lemonade party, sparking the class to create a variety of virtual social events that have already bonded them closely.
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Passing the baton
August 21, 2020
As William Alford completes his tenure, Mark Wu assumes vice deanship of the Graduate Program and International Legal Studies at HLS.
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After 18 years, Professor Alford completes his tenure as vice dean for the Graduate Program and ILS
August 17, 2020
After 18 years as its faculty director, Professor William P. Alford ’77 completed his tenure as vice dean for the Graduate Program and International Legal Studies at Harvard Law School on June 30.
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A Q&A with Mark Wu on his appointment as vice dean for the Graduate Program and International Legal Studies
August 16, 2020
Mark Wu, the Henry L. Stimson Professor at Harvard Law School, was recently appointed the new vice dean for the Graduate Program and International Legal Studies. He replaces William Alford, who served in the role for the past 18 years.
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How far has the diplomatic relationship between the United States and China sunk? It’s gotten to the point where China watchers are increasingly invoking a fuzzy but extreme concept: “decoupling.” In its purest form, the term refers to a halt in the flows of information, money, ideas, and people between the world’s two powers. And there’s plenty of evidence the two countries are headed in that direction...But how realistic is a pure decoupling – and what does decoupling, in any form, mean for our collective future? To help answer this question, I gathered a group of China experts with backgrounds in finance, trade, government and technology...Joining me for the virtual discussion...[is] Mark Wu, Vice Dean and professor of international trade at Harvard Law School... "When we use the term decoupling, we have to think of it as a spectrum. There are a range of options and it will differ depending on which sector. What's the nature of that company? It will also differ based on where that company earns its revenue globally. One possibility is definitely the zero-sum choice that Samm alluded to. But for other companies, this is a question about simply not putting all your eggs in one basket. So you've seen some companies depend overwhelmingly on either Chinese or American suppliers. And now [they are] thinking, we better have other sources in case unexpected developments happen. Then there is another alternative, which is to say nothing's going to change about how we operate currently, but we may have to change our future plans. Chinese companies right now who operate with a 'China for China' type of strategy may now be thinking about going towards a 'China for the world' strategy."
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President Trump said he would sign the recently negotiated phase-one trade deal with China in Washington on Jan. 15 — marking a formal truce in the U.S-China trade war — and would later travel to Beijing to negotiate a broader pact...Mr. Trump has focused most of his attention on the Chinese farm purchases. According to U.S. negotiators, China has agreed to buy an average of at least $40 billion annually in agricultural goods starting in 2020...In addition, the U.S. has claimed, China has agreed to increase overall imports of U.S. goods and services by $200 billion over the next two years — a growth spurt that China hasn’t come close to reaching in the years since it joined the World Trade Organization in 2001...Both sides say that any purchases must conform to WTO rules — a requirement that could give China a way to argue that it can’t meet purchase goals. For instance, soybean purchases diverted from Brazil to the U.S. could violate WTO rules. “The trick is for the agreement to be crafted in a manner that’s ambiguous enough so as not to raise WTO challenges, but is clear enough to satisfy the U.S. that the Chinese government will use the tools available to it to direct farm purchases to the U.S.,” said Mark Wu, a WTO expert at Harvard Law School.
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Hours after China announced retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods on Friday, President Donald Trump ordered U.S. companies to “start looking for an alternative to China, including bringing your companies HOME and making your products in the USA.”...Trump could treat China more like Iran and order sanctions, which would involve declaring a national emergency under a 1977 law called the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA...Invoking IEEPA could also trigger legal challenges in U.S. courts, said Mark Wu, a professor of international trade at Harvard Law School...A far more dramatic measure, albeit highly unlikely, would be to invoke the Trading with the Enemy Act, which was passed by Congress during World War One. The law allows the U.S. president to regulate and punish trade with a country with whom the United States is at war. Trump is unlikely to invoke this law because it would sharply escalate tensions with China, said Wu. “It would be a much more dramatic step to declare China to be an enemy power with which the U.S. is at war, given the president has at times touted his friendship with and respect for President Xi (Jinping),” said Wu. “That would amount to an overt declaration, while IEEPA would allow the Trump administration to take similar actions without as large of a diplomatic cost.”