Peking University Law School

Peking University Law School (Chinese: 北京大学法学院) is a law school of Peking University, a public research university in Beijing, China.

Founded in 1904 as the law department of Peking University, making it the oldest law school in China. Since 2015, the law school has been ranked first in Mainland China and one of top three law schools in Asia by QS World University Rankings. The school has been generally regarded as one of the most highly competitive and selective law school in China. The school's Bachelor of Laws students have the highest average scores in China's college entrance examination among all law schools in China, with the average acceptance rate of Master of Laws and Juris Master is less than 10% in 2017.

Peking University Law School confers four types of law degrees: Bachelor of Laws, Master of Laws, Juris Master, and Doctor of Laws. As of 2017, PKU LAW employs more than 70 professors and has established 36 research centers. Four of the law school's disciplines including Legal Theory Studies, Constitution and Administrative Law Studies, Economic Law Studies, and Criminal Law Studies are ranked the best in China. The school publishes 11 legal journals, including Peking University Law Journal (edited by staff members) and Peking University Law Review (edited by students).

Peking University Law School has produced many luminaries in both law and politics. Its alumni include China's former Premier Li Keqiang and four of the current justices of China's Supreme Court, Jiang Bixin, Nan Ying, Sun Huapu and Pei Xianding. According to a survey conducted in 2017, 246 partners of China's top 8 law firms are PKU LAW alumni, more than the second and the third-ranked law school combined. The school is also the workplace for some of the most prominent legal scholars in China, including Zhang Qianfan, Chen Xinliang, and He Weifang.

History

Founded in 1904, Peking University Law School is China's oldest law school. Its parent institution, Peking University, is the first national university in modern China. In 1898, China's young emperor Guang Xu and his supporters initiated the "hundred days' reform", the reform was an attempt to modernize China by reforming its government, economy and society. The short-lived reform saw the establishment of the Imperial University of Peking, which started offering law courses in 1902. It was one of only two law schools to not be closed during the upheaval of the Cultural Revolution in 1966–1976.

On May 24, 2003, in the prominent case of Sun Zhigang, three graduate students at the law school, Xu Zhiyong, Teng Biao and Yu Jiang submitted a proposal regarding the Measures of Custody and Repatriation for Urban Vagrants and Beggars to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, citing concerns that the provisions restricted personal freedom of citizens and contradicted with the civil rights protection clauses of the Constitution. The proposal urged the committee to conduct a review of the provisions' constitutionality and had drawn national attention. The State Council of China formally revoked the Measures of Custody and Repatriation for Urban Vagrants and Beggars on June 20, 2020. This case has been widely regarded as a landmark case of China's civil rights protection movement.

In 2005, three professors and three graduate students at the law school filed the first public interest litigation in China, asking the Heilongjiang Higher People's Court to fine the defendant PetroChina a total of 10 billion Yuan to set up a public fund to restore the environment of the Songhua River, which was seriously polluted by an explosion of a Diphenyl Plant owned by PetroChina. However, the court refused to accept the case citing political concerns.

Periodicals

Peking University Law Journal
Peking University Law Review

Prominent faculty

Zhang Qianfan: constitutional law, comparative constitution, Chinese constitution, constitutional theory

Chen Xingliang: criminal law philosophy, dogmatics of criminal law, case study of criminal law
He Weifang: history of western legal ideology, legal theory, comparative law, judiciary, foreign legal history
Chen Ruihua: criminal procedure, evidence law, judiciary, procedure theory, legal methodology
Bai Guimei: international law, basic theory of international law, international human rights law
Bai Jianjun: criminology, criminal law, empirical legal study, financial criminology
Che Hao: Chinese criminal law, foreign criminal law, philosophy and policy of criminal law
Liang Genlin: criminal law, criminal policy science, criminology
Gan Peizhong: enterprise law, corporation law, security law, economic law
Ge Yunsong: general part of civil procedure, property law, law of obligations, law of negotiable instruments, NPO law
Guo Li: economic law, international economic law, law and finance, commercial law, comparative law
Guo Zili: foreign criminal law, law and biomedical technology
Jiang Shigong: jurisprudence, constitutional law, Hong Kong legal studies, legal sociology
Liu Jianwen Professor: fiscal and taxation law, intellectual property law, economic law, international taxation law
Liu Kaixiang: property law, contract law, partnership law, trust law
Pan Jianfeng: civil procedure, evidence law, arbitration system, judiciary
Qian Mingxing: civil and commercial law Shen Kui: administrative law, constitutional law, national compensation system, human rights, risk management
Wang Jiancheng: criminal procedure law, evidence law
Wang Jin: environmental law, economic law
Wang Shizhou: criminal law, international criminal law, foreign criminal law, European criminal law
Wang Xixin: Chinese administrative law, analysis of legal and administrative process, administrative procedure, comparative administrative law
Wu Zhipan: international economic law, nancial law
Xu Aiguo: history of western legal ideology, Anglo American Law of Torts, foreign tax law
Ye Jingyi: social law, labor law, social security law
Zhang Ping: intellectual property law, Internet law
Zhang Shouwen: economic law, scal and taxation law, social law
Zhan Zhongle: administrative law, administrative procedure law, education law, environmental law, police law

Notable alumni

Peking University Law School's prestige and large class size has enabled it to produce a large number of luminary alumni, including the former Premier of China Li Keqiang. Li Keqiang was enrolled in the law school in 1977 when the school resumed admission following the end of the cultural revolution. Four sitting justices of China's Supreme Court are alumni of Peking University Law school.

The school's alumni also include some of the most prominent legal scholars in China's modern history, including Mu Rui, founder of China's economic law and international economic law; Gong Xiangrui, prominent scholar of constitutional law; Wang Tieya, international jurist and former Justice of the International Criminal Tribunal of the former Yugoslavia. Zhang Guohua, legal historian, one of the founders of the studies of Chinese legal thought history; Xiao Weiyun, constitutional jurist, member of the Basic Law Drafting Committee of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and the Basic Law Drafting Committee of the Macao Special Administrative Region; Yang Chunxi, criminal jurist, one of founders of contemporary Chinese criminal law; Luo Haocai, administrative law jurist and former justice of China's supreme court.

Journalist Dong Yuyu, arrested by Chinese authorities in 2022 on charges of espionage, graduated from the law school in 1987.

Chess grandmaster and World Chess Champion Ding Liren is an alumnus of Peking University Law School.