During November 21 and 22, 2014, the 2011 Plan - China Collaborative Innovation Center of Judicial Civilization Co-Director – Professor Baosheng Zhang, together with CICJC team members – Associate Professor Zhong Zhang and Assistant Professor Zhuhao Wang and Judge Jiahai Zhou from Supreme People’s Court of China were invited by Professor Ronald Jay Allen, the John Henry Wigmore Professor of Law at Northwestern University and the “2014 China Friendship Award” winner, to attend an international conference on topic of “The Foundations of the Law of Evidence and their Implications for Developing Countries” in Chicago, which was hosted by Northwestern University School of Law and co-organized by the Government of Republic of Tanzania and by the 2011 Plan – China Collaborative Innovation Center of Judicial Civilization.

The conference examined the challenges of law reform in third world countries with a particular focus on reform movements concerning the law of evidence in Tanzania and China (and how good a model the FRE may be). The conference thus, as its title suggests, examined the conceptual foundations of the field of evidence and their implications for drafting rules or the law of evidence for quite different social and political contexts. The conference participants included experts in the field of evidence from across the world, i.e. United States, China, Tanzania, Britain, Italy, Australia, Columbia and Ethiopia and conducted extensive discussions over seven major topics – “The Foundation and Principles Guiding Reform of the Law of Evidence”, “Working in Foreign Lands”, “Reform of Evidence Law in Tanzania”, “Reform of the Legal System in China”, “Federal Rules of Evidence as a Model for Reform”, “The European Experiences” and “Reflections, Philosophical or Otherwise, on the Law of Evidence Law”.

 After the conference, Boston University International Law Journal (“BUILJ”) set up a special column entitled “The Foundations of the Law of Evidence and Their Implications for Developing Countries”, which included three articles written by professors from Institute of Evidence Law and Forensic Science, CUPL, which are “Reflecting on Development of Evidence Law in China” from Professor Baosheng Zhang, “Practical Basis of Evidence Legislation in China” from Professor Zhong Zhang and “Why Chinese Witnesses Do Not Testify at Trial in Criminal Proceedings” from Professor Zhuhao Wang.

For more information about the international conference “The Foundations of the Law of Evidence and their Implications for Developing Countries” held in Northwestern University School of Law, http://www.law.northwestern.edu/research-faculty/conferences/law-evidence/

For more information about the special column on the BUILJ website, http://www.bu.edu/ilj/reforming-the-law-of-evidence-of-tanzania-part-three/