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30 Mich. St. Int'l L. Rev. 417 (2022)
Relational Justice: Reconciling Murder in China

handle is hein.journals/mistjintl30 and id is 431 raw text is: 



RELATIONAL JUSTICE: RECONCILING MURDER
                           IN  CHINA

                           Michelle Miao*

   This  paper  analyses and  theorizes the  quasi-judicial practices
surrounding offender- victim reconciliation in murder cases in China. It
found  that this money-for-life process was enabled and  shaped by,
respectively, the role of the state, market forces and socio-cultural ties
amongst  individuals. Using the concept of relational justice, the paper
explains that interpersonal networks underpin the conception of justice in
China. This nexus between  relations and justice may explain why the
judicial regulation of social conflicts focuses on the repair and restoration
of  social relations. The paper  also illustrates that the economic
transformations in  China   during  the  past decades   led to  the
commodification of interpersonal relations. In this way, the paper provides
an alternative approach for understanding the conception, process, and
function of justice in contemporary China. Rather than merely focusing on
the concept of rule of law as a measurement of good governance, this paper
explains why  the notion of rule by relations might be also useful to
articulate the logic of China's judicial realism.

















   * Associate Professor, the Faculty of Law, Chinese University of Hong
 Kong. rmihe leiaoacuhkredu.hk. This paper was written during my ten-
 ure at Harvard Yenching Institute in 2019-2020. I am deeply indebted to the
 guidance and feedback provided by Professor William Alford.

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