Margaret Lewis

Professor Margaret Lewis

Associate Dean for Faculty Development and Institutional Operations and Professor of Law

  • Degrees:

  • J.D., New York University School of Law | B.A., Columbia University
  • Contact:

  • [email protected]
  • Tel: 973-642-8821
  • SSRN Site link
  • Curriculum Vitae
  • Courses:

  • Law in Contemporary China, Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, Transnational Law, International Human Rights and Criminal Justice, Introduction to Lawyering

Professor Margaret Lewis’s research focuses on law in China and Taiwan with an emphasis on criminal justice and human rights.

Professor Lewis has been a Fulbright Senior Scholar at National Taiwan University, a visiting professor at Academia Sinica, a Public Intellectuals Program Fellow with the National Committee on United States-China Relations, and a delegate to the US-Japan Foundation's US-Japan Leadership Program. She is a Member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Her publications have appeared in a number of academic journals including the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, NYU Journal of International Law and Politics, Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, and Virginia Journal of International Law. She also co-authored the book Challenge to China: How Taiwan Abolished its Version of Re-Education Through Labor with Jerome A. Cohen.

Professor Lewis has participated in the State Department’s Legal Experts Dialogue with China, has testified before the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, and is a consultant to the Ford Foundation.

Before joining Seton Hall, Professor Lewis served as a Senior Research Fellow at NYU School of Law’s U.S.-Asia Law Institute where she worked on criminal justice reforms in China. Following graduation from law school, she worked as an associate at the law firm of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton in New York City. She then served as a law clerk for the Honorable M. Margaret McKeown of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Diego. After clerking, she returned to NYU School of Law and was awarded a Furman Fellowship.

Professor Lewis received her J.D., magna cum laude, from NYU School of Law, where she was inducted into the Order of the Coif and was a member of Law Review. She received her B.A., summa cum laude, from Columbia University and also studied at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center for Chinese and American Studies in Nanjing, China.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

LAW REVIEW ARTICLES

Criminalizing China, 111 J. Crim. L. & Criminology (forthcoming 2020)

Why China Should Unsign the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 53 Vand. J. Transnat’l L. 131 (2020)

Forging Taiwan’s Legal Identity, 44 Brook. J. Int’l L. (2019)

Safeguarding the Boundaries of Right: Jerome A. Cohen’s Experience with Law in the People’s Republic of China, 65 Am. J. Comp. L. 745 (2018) (invited submission)

Human Rights and the U.S.-China Relationship, 49 Geo. Wash. Int’l L. Rev. 471 (2017)

When Foreign is Criminal, 55 Va. J. Int'l L. 625 (2015)

Criminal Law Pays: Penal Law’s Contribution to China’s Economic Development, 47 Vand. J. Transnat'l L. 371 (2014)

How Taiwan’s Constitutional Court Reined in Police Power: Lessons for the People’s Republic of China, 37 Fordham Int'l L.J. 863 (2014) (co-authored with Jerome A. Cohen)

Presuming Innocence, or Corruption, in China, 50 Colum. J. Transnat’l L. 287 (2012)

Controlling Abuse to Maintain Control: The Exclusionary Rule in China, 43 N.Y.U. J. Int'l. L. & Pol. 629 (2011) (awarded Jerome A. Cohen Prize for International Law and East Asia)

The Tension Between Leniency and Severity in China's Death Penalty Debate, 24 Colum. J. Asian L. 303 (2011) (invited submission)

Taiwan's New Adversarial System and the Overlooked Challenge of Efficiency-Driven Reforms, 49 Va. J. Int'l L. 651 (2009)

Note, An Analysis of State Responsibility for the Chinese-American Airplane Collision Incident, 77 N. Y. U. L. Rev. 1404 (2002)

BOOKS

Challenge to China: How Taiwan Abolished its Version of Re-Education Through Labor, 2013: English version from Berkshire Publishing and NYU School of Law, U.S.-Asia Law Institute; Chinese version from Yuan Zhao Publishing, Taiwan (co-authored with Jerome A. Cohen) (2013)

BOOK CHAPTERS

Seeking Truthful Names: The External Implications of China’s Internal Ideology on Governance, in Law and the Party in Xi Jinping’s China: Ideology and Organization, Cambridge University Press (Rogier Creemers & Susan Trevaskes eds.) (forthcoming 2020)

Creative Contacts: Taiwan’s Quest for International Law Enforcement Cooperation, in Chinese (Taiwan) Yearbook of International Law and Affairs (Ying-jeou Ma ed., Brill) (2019)

Freedom from Torture, in Handbook on Human Rights in China (Sarah Biddulph & Joshua Rosenzweig eds., Edward Elgar) (2019)

Who Shall Judge? Taiwan’s Exploration of Lay Participation in Criminal Trials, in Taiwan and International Human Rights: A Story of Transformation (William P. Alford, Jerome A. Cohen & Chang-fa Lo eds., Springer) (2019)

Constitutions Across the Strait, in International Engagement in China's Human Rights (Chen Dingding & Titus Chen eds., Routledge) (2015)

Legal Systems in China, in Handbook of Chinese Criminology (Liqun Cao, et al. eds., Routledge) (2012)

The Enduring Importance of Police Repression: Laojiao, the Rule of Law and Taiwan's Alternative Evolution, in The Impact of China's 1989 Tienanmen Massacre, Jean-Philippe Béja, ed.,Routledge (with Jerome A. Cohen) (2010)

OTHER JOURNAL ARTICLES

China's Implementation of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, Asian J. of Criminology, Vol. 2, No. 2 (2007)

BOOK REVIEWS

Jedidiah J. Kroncke, The Futility of Law and Development: China and the Dangers of Exporting American Law, China Rev. Int’l, Vol. 22, No. 1 (2015)

Susan Trevaskes, The Death Penalty in Contemporary China, The China J., No. 72 (July 2014)

Teemu Ruskola, Legal Orientalism: China, the United States, and Modern Law, The China J., No. 72 (July 2014)

David T. Johnson & Franklin E. Zimring, The Next Frontier: National Development, Political Change, and the Death Penalty in Asia, 11 Punishment & Soc'y 109 (2010)

PRESENTATIONS

Full list of presentations available in Curriculum Vitae

Criminalizing China, APA (Asian Pacific American) Justice (July 2020)

Criminalizing China, USC U.S.– China Institute (June 2020)

Criminalizing China, National Committee on United States–China Relations (June 2020)

Criminalizing China, NYU School of Law, U.S.–Asia Law Institute (April 2020)

Critical Vote: A Taiwan Post-Election Roundtable, Taiwan Studies Program, University of Washington, Seattle (January 2020) (Panelist)

Future of U.S.-China Relations: Society & Values, Center for the Study of Contemporary China, University of Pennsylvania (June 2020) (Panelist)

National Security and Diplomacy, U.S.–China Series, Seattle (January 2020) (Panelist)

Taiwan Elections and Implications for Cross-Strait and U.S.–Taiwan Relations, Center for the Study of Contemporary China, University of Pennsylvania (January 2020) (Panelist)

The Future of Scientific Cooperation, U.S.–China Series, Virtual Webinar (May 2020) (Panelist)

2-28 and 6-4: Massacres and Memories in Taiwan and China, University of Hong Kong (July 2019)

China and Extradition, Council on Foreign Relations, New York (October 2019) (Speaker)

China’s Relations with Hong Kong and Taiwan: Rule of Power and Rule of Law, Association for Asian Studies, Annual Conference, Denver (March 2019) (Panelist)

Critical Issues Confronting China Series: Taiwan and Cross-Strait Relations, Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University (May 2019)

Iron Triangles and Silver Kites: Duty Lawyers in China, China’s Legal Construction Program at 40 Years: Towards an Autonomous Legal System?, University of Michigan Law School (October 2019)

National Security and Economic Espionage, Seton Hall Law School, Newark (November 2019) (Panelist)

Recent Progress in U.S. Law on Drug Crimes, Yunnan University Law School and Risun Drug Crime Defense Academy, Kunming (June 2019) (in Chinese)

Sino-American Dialogue on the Rule of Law and Human Rights, National Committee on United States–China Relations, New York (October 2019) (Dialogue Participant)

Tiananmen at 30: 1989 in International History, Law and Memory, Rutgers University, New Jersey (April 2019) (Panelist)

Tiananmen, China’s Legal System, and Human Rights, Council on Foreign Relations, New York (May 2019) (Speaker)

Why China Should Unsign the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Center for the Study of Contemporary China, University of Pennsylvania (September 2019)

Why China Should Unsign the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Institutum Iurisprudentiae, Academia Sinica, Taipei (July 2019)

Why China Should Unsign the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, National Chiao Tung University, School of Law, Taiwan (June 2019)

Why China Should Unsign the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Workshop on Works-in-Progress on Chinese Law, Center for Chinese Legal Studies, Columbia Law School (May 2019)

Why Law Matters in Taiwan, Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University (May 2019)

Criminal Justice Across the Taiwan Strait: Taiwan’s Human Rights Revolution and China’s Devolution, National University of Singapore (March 2018)

Ethics and Censorship: Compliance or Complicity, Singapore Management University School of Law (March 2018)

Forging Taiwan’s Legal Identity, Workshop on Works-in-Progress on Chinese Law, Yale Law School (May 2018)

Forging Taiwan’s Legal Identity, Institutum Iurisprudentiae, Academia Sinica, Taipei (April 2018)

From Chiang Kai-Shek to Tsai Ing-wen: Legal Reforms and Identity in Taiwan Today, Hopkins– Nanjing Center for Chinese and American Studies, Nanjing (December 2018)

From Chiang Kai-Shek to Tsai Ing-wen: Legal Reforms and Identity in Taiwan Today, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, Washington, DC (October 2018)

From Separation to Concentration of Powers: China’s New-Type Political Party System, Ideology and Organisation in Communist Chinese Law, hosted by the Australian Centre for China in the World, Australian National University & Griffith University, Melbourne (April 2018)

Obstruction of Justice and the American President, National Chiao Tung University, School of Law, Taiwan (March 2018)

Plea Bargaining in America: An Example from the Mueller Investigation, China University of Politics and Law, Beijing (December 2018)

Recent Changes in Governance and the Law in the PRC and Taiwan, Australian National University, Canberra (April 2018) (Panelist)

Seeking Truthful Names: The External Implications of China’s Internal Ideology on Governance, Younger Scholars Forum in Comparative Law, International Academy of Comparative Law, Fukuoka, Japan (July 2018) (by invitation through competitive selection)

Sino-American Dialogue on the Rule of Law and Human Rights, National Committee on United States-China Relations, Beijing (December 2018) (Dialogue Participant)

The Role of the Judiciary in U.S. Democracy, National Taiwan University, College of Law, Taipei (September 2018) (Commentator) address by the Honorable Allyson K. Duncan, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit)

The Uncertain Trajectory of Legal Reforms in Taiwan, National Taiwan University, College of Law, Taipei (May 2018)

The Widening Gulf Across the Taiwan Strait: Law, Criminal Justice, and Human Rights, Melbourne Law School (April 2018)

The Widening Gulf Across the Taiwan Strait: Law, Criminal Justice, and Human Rights, Chinese University of Hong Kong (March 2018)

Who Shall Judge? Taiwan’s Proposal for Lay Participation in Criminal Trials, Taiwan Fulbright Mid-Year Conference (January 2018)