While frequent lawsuits against businesses for claiming excessive damages have negative impacts on the economy, lawsuits may be strategically employed to improve law enforcement and social governance. Chinese consumer citizen suits are an example of such, although their patterns and impacts remain a mystery. This work constructs a comprehensive knowledge graph (KG) from judicial decisions and employs transformer-based heterogeneous graph neural networks (HGNNs) to analyze the behavioral patterns of plaintiffs. By leveraging deep contextual features from the KG, this study uncovers hidden social relationships among plaintiffs, revealing organized litigation behaviors facilitated by shared legal resources, such as lawyers, law offices, and common defendants. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first empirical study to uncover and validate hidden social connections among consumer-plaintiffs in China using a KG and a transformer-based HGNN framework. The findings reveal significant community structures, indicating that plaintiffs may frequently act in organized groups in lawsuit activities. This study advances methodological approaches by integrating HGNNs for link prediction and modularity-based community detection, offering actionable insights into the dynamics of grassroots litigation. By introducing a novel analytical framework and dataset, this work deepens the understanding of consumer lawsuits, underscores the influence of social networks on litigation behavior, and lays a foundation for future research in legal analytics and social network analysis (SNA) within the legal domain.

This article examines the lack of information transparency on the part of the Chinese government as revealed in the COVID-19 outbreak. Based on the evidence of the lack of information transparency in the initial stage of this public health emergency, the article reviews how the Chinese public health emergency information system, which had been established in response to the 2003 SARS crisis, was implemented. It further analyses the fundamental reasons for the lack of information transparency despite the reporting, disseminating and early warning mechanisms that existed in the country. It finds that powerless centres for disease control and prevention, prioritisation of the political concern of social stability and harmonisation over public health, extremely tight governance of public opinions and inadequacies of the public health emergency information system with respect to new and emerging infectious diseases are the four major factors that combined to result in the lack of information transparency in the COVID-19 outbreak in China. The article identifies big lessons to be learned to promote information transparency in public health emergencies.

In July 2015, China’s national legislature brought in prosecutor-led civil environmental public interest litigations (“EPILs”) for thirteen selected provincial areas of the country. After a two-year legal experiment, this prosecutor-led civil EPIL system was then established nationwide in July 2017. Yet, can it be said that prosecutorial regulators in China are in fact a paper tiger? Drawing upon content analysis of the 655 prosecutor-led civil EPILs and in-depth interviews with twelve frontline prosecutors and judges, this article examines the dynamics of regulatory practice and the motivation of the Chinese prosecutorial organs to engage in environmental regulation through litigation. Based upon the above two legislative landmarks in the law reform of this area, the regulatory practice of prosecutorial organs can be viewed as having occurred in three stages, with each stage featuring a distinct regulatory model: ad hoc regulation through local innovation before July 2015, forced regulation during the legal experiment from July 2015 to July 2017, and perfunctory regulation after the nationwide establishment of the prosecutor-led civil EPIL system in July 2017. The data show that the Chinese prosecutorial organs have engaged in a larger number of such lawsuits since the second stage, but they have shown a strong preference for cases with less complicated facts, weak and small defendants, and minor environmental violations. Three factors that influence regulatory motivation are employed to analyse the change in regulatory models: the ambiguity of the law, the top-down political pressure for regulation, and the cost of regulation. This study highlights the very limited effectiveness of vertical political pressure in boosting prosecutorial regulation and the strong impacts of the cost of regulation and the ambiguity of the law. In particular, the high cost of regulation that takes weak regulatory capacity, lack of regulatory autonomy, and the winning rate-oriented performance appraisal system into account have significantly weakened the motivation of prosecutorial organs to pursue civil EPILs. The findings of this study echo the conditions present in the successful prosecutorial regulations in Brazil and contribute to the scholarship about prosecutorial regulations in the field of environmental protection in the Global South.

人工智能技术在医疗领域的应用相对成熟且前景可期.人工智能医疗的兴起和发展引发了人工智能法律地位、产品责任、数据安全和隐私保护、知识产权保护等一系列的法律问题,并在规范和管理层面带来全新的挑战.在阐释人工智能特征和局限性的基础上,就上述法律问题,结合中国现行法并参考域外法,全面探讨人工智能医疗带来的法律问题与规管挑战.

This article investigates the nature of the operation and the role of expert opinions in Chinese medical negligence litigation, drawing on content analysis of 3,619 medical negligence cases and an in-depth survey of judges with experience of adjudicating medical negligence cases. It offers three major findings: first, that both parties to medical negligence disputes show significant selection bias of medical opinions, as do courts when selecting court-appointed experts; second, expert opinions in medical negligence litigation demonstrate substantial adversarial bias; third, courts display very strong judicial deference to expert opinions in determining medical negligence liability. This article fills the methodological gap left by the existing literature because there has been no empirical discussion on expert opinions in Chinese civil litigation. Moreover, it has important implications for the ongoing reform of the medical negligence authentication mechanism proposed by the Chinese government. The article also sheds insights on the social, legal and institutional factors that contribute to selection bias, adversarial bias and judicial deference to expert opinions in the Chinese medical negligence litigation setting.

This chapter discusses the law on contract formation in Chinese law which largely follows the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods and the UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts. An objective approach is adopted in determining the parties’ intentions but exceptions are allowed where parties have not accurately expressed their true agreement, the contract is a sham, or one party’s intentional false expression is known to the other. For a contract to be binding, its ‘essential elements’ must be agreed (names of the parties, subject matter, and quantity); other terms may be agreed by the parties after the conclusion of the contract or, failing that, determination by the court. In reality, however, courts use soft laws and the nature of the contract, to augment what is required. A purported acceptance which makes a ‘non-material’ alteration to the content of the offer can bind the offeror unless the offeror timely rejects it, but there is little scope for non-materiality. Nevertheless, even a materially varied acceptance can bind if the original offeror’s performance amounts to acceptance where the usage of transaction or the express terms of the offer allows acceptance by conduct. Furthermore, courts show willingness to recognize an acceptance by conduct of performance beyond these two situations. There is no general requirement of form for a valid contract, although exceptionally, laws or administrative regulations may require writing or approval/registration. There is no general requirement of consideration; gratuitous contracts are enforceable. However, the latter attract far less legal force than onerous contracts. An offer is irrevocable only if it is an option or if the offeree reasonably believes the offer is irrevocable and has made preparations for the performance of the contract. An acceptance takes effect only when it arrives. A late acceptance that is not attributed to the offeree is ineffective unless the offeror gives timely notice of its intention to ratify the acceptance. Electronic means of communication are treated in the same way as paper-based communications with specific rules to determine the time and place of contract formation and the validity of electronic signature. Reliance-based pre-contractual liability may be imposed, on the basis of the requirement of good faith, in the circumstances including negotiating with no intention of concluding a contract, intentional concealment of material facts, or breach of confidentiality.

范瑞平:诸位好!受《中国医学伦理学》杂志王明旭主编所托,组织一篇"换头术的挑战"争鸣笔谈,特邀各位参与。请踊跃发表意见,观点不拘,长短不限,畅所欲言,各抒己见,若能针对已发观点形成争论,则更能增加读者兴趣。"换头"问题近来吵得沸沸扬扬。意大利神经外科专家赛吉尔·卡纳瓦罗（Sergio Canavero）在

The long-awaited Mental Health Law of China was passed on 26 October 2012 and took effect on 1 May 2013. Being the first national legislation on mental health, it establishes a basic legal framework to regulate mental health practice and recognizes the fundamental rights of persons with mental disorders. This article focuses on the system of involuntary detention and treatment of the mentally ill under the new law, which is expected to prevent the so-called “Being misidentified as mentally disordered” cases in China. A systematic examination of the new system demonstrates that the Mental Health Law of China implicitly holds two problematic assumptions and does not provide adequate protection of the fundamental rights of the involuntary patients. Administrative enactments and further national legislative efforts are needed to remedy these flaws in the new law.

信息科学技术的蓬勃发展,使得个人健康信息遭受侵害的可能性骤然上升。为消除公众不安全感,欧美不但将个人信息保护提升至宪法意义上的人格权的层面,而且努力构建既能有效预防、减少侵害事故的发生,又能充分、及时补偿受害者的综合性法律体系。

因他人的故意或过失行为而遭受精神病学意义上的伤害即为精神创伤。精神创伤赔偿旨在保护自然人的精神健康权,因此有别于现行法下"精神损害赔偿"之概念。直到晚近,精神创伤的可赔偿性方才获得普通法系和大陆法系法律的认可与重视。尽管我国司法实务中已经出现了诸多精神创伤案件,但是我国学界对精神创伤赔偿问题的研究甚少。本文则通过考察精神创伤赔偿的基本概念,结合普通法系和大陆法系主要法域的相关理论与实务,探讨在我国现行法下如何建构精神创伤赔偿理论,以期为实务界审理日益增加的精神创伤案件提供学理上的参考。

生命法学是研究生命法这一特定社会现象及其发展规律的部门法学。生命法具有某些与其他法所不同的或不尽相同的特征,主要表现为四个方面:一为本质上的社会性;二为立法上的预期性;三为内容上的伦理性;四为功能上的激励性。如果代孕者是出于互助目的自愿无偿为他人孕育子女,则完全是个人私权利问题,并不涉及公共道德问题,法律就不应当强行禁止。代孕具有一定的积极性,立法禁止任何形式的代孕技术既不现实也缺乏合宪性基础。胚胎著床前遗传学诊断是生命科技的一项重大发展,但它的应用却引发激烈的伦理争论。容许伦理和法律的边界具有一定的模糊性和变动性,符合生命科技迅速发展、社会伦理不断变迁的大背景。

生命法学是研究生命法这一特定社会现象及其发展规律的部门法学.生命法具有某些与其他法所不同的或不尽相同的特征,主要表现为四个方面:一为本质上的社会性;二为立法上的预期性;三为内容上的伦理性;四为功能上的激励性.如果代孕者是出于互助目的自愿无偿为他人孕育子女,则完全是个人私权利问题,并不涉及公共道德问题,法律就不应当强行禁止.代孕具有一定的积极性,立法禁止任何形式的代孕技术既不现实也缺乏合宪性基础.胚胎著床前遗传学诊断是生命科技的一项重大发展,但它的应用却引发激烈的伦理争论.容许伦理和法律的边界具有一定的模糊性和变动性,符合生命科技迅速发展、社会伦理不断变迁的大背景.

本文围绕医疗实务中的知情同意豁免,首先讨论了知情同意豁免规则的法律政策,详细分析了紧急情形豁免,治疗豁免、知情同意权的放弃和强制治疗这四种豁免情形,简述了医务人员在适用知情同意豁免规则时可能的法律责任.

<正>一、导言所谓"错误出生案件",是指原本不应该出生的婴儿由于医疗机构或医务人员的医疗过失而出生。随着医学技术的发展,现代人可以借助医学知识及医疗措施防止生育、或者中止生育具有先天缺陷的婴儿。然而,在医学发展增强了人们对个人及家庭生活之决策能力的同时,也使得医疗机构或医务人员相应地承担了更多的注意义务和法律风险。无论在我国抑或其它法域,"错误出生案件"屡见不鲜。具体而言,存在如下几种实例:

Patients’ right to medical records has seldom been discussed either in the academic or in the practical area. However, this right is closely connected with the protection of patient autonomy, the improvement of physician-patient relationship as well as the development of public health safety. Patients' right to medical records consists of two parts: a right to inspect and obtain copies of their medical records and a right to control their medical records. This article thus focuses on these two sub-rights by thoroughly analyzing their legal basis, exceptional circumstances, the manner of exercising right and remedies. Hopefully, by relying on this article, both patients and medical professionals will more clearly understand the rights or the duties they respectively have concerning medical records.