Fri 10 May 2019
By Jayne He
The Inaugural CIBEL Global Network Conference and Young Scholars Workshop hosted by UNSW Law’s China International Business and Economic Law (CIBEL) Centre were held successfully in Sydney on May 1-2. Over 50 speakers talked at the events and more than 150 attendees coming from all over the globe participated in the events over the two days.
The “CIBEL Global Network” is a program initiated by the CIBEL Centre with an aim to build up a prosperous global community of researchers, practitioners, students and other stakeholders working in the CIBEL field. The Conference and Young Scholars Workshop are core parts of the “CIBEL Global Network” program. Besides the academic events like these, the CIBEL Centre will provide support for the Network by organising social and networking events in the future.
In the opening remarks of the main conference on the first day, the Dean of UNSW Law, Scientia Professor George Williams expressed his appreciation of the partnership between the CIBEL Centre and Herbert Smith Freehills, who is the key industry partner of the Centre and provides support to the Centre. Scientia Professor Williams also noted that the CIBEL Global Network would be a globally leading hub for participants across the world to conduct research and social engagement.
The Dean of Tsinghua University Law School Professor Weixing Shen gave the keynote at the conference with a title of “The Construction of Rights System of Data in China’s Civil Code”, where he talked about concerns on digital economy and data protection, and how to build up a rights system of data within China’s civil code.
32 panel members sat in 7 panels on various topics within the CIBEL field at the main conference. The participants were from 18 top universities in China, Japan, Singapore, the U.S. and Australia including Tsinghua University, Renmin University of China, Nagoya University, National University of Singapore, University of Miami, University of Sydney, Australian National University, Monash University, just to name a few.
At the conference, the participants discussed a wide range of cutting-edge CIBEL issues, covering from classic law subjects like Competition Law, Corporate and Securities Law, Trade Law, Investment Law to the emerging FinTech and regulation of digital financial services, Intellectual Property Law and China’s ambitious “One Belt One Road” Initiative.
At the Young Scholars Workshop on May 2, 22 PhD students and young scholars from seven countries talked about their papers and got feedbacks from experts in the relevant field. The speakers and attendees also had the opportunity to hear from the Associate Dean (Research) of UNSW law, Professor Fleur Johns, Professor Dimity Kingsford Smith and Dr Weihuan Zhou about general research skills.
The 2-day event concluded with the award ceremony of the CIBEL Global Network PhD Scholar Prize and CIBEL Global Network Young Scholar Prize. The CIBEL Centre’s co-director Professor Deborah Healey announced Francine Hug from National University of Singapore won the PhD Scholar Prize with her paper titled “New-Generation FTAs and China’s Legal Strategies: E-Commerce in the Shadows of Cybersecurity Laws” while Associate Professor Huiqin Jiang of Zhejiang Sci-Tech University was awarded the Young Scholar Prize with her paper “Australia’s Foreign Investment Review Mechanism: A Regulatory and Empirical Review”.