US Univ. to train lawyers for NW China province

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(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-11-01 17:16

BEIJING: An official with US Temple University said here on Sunday that the university's Beasley School of Law would help Northwest China's Qinghai Province to train lawyers.

"Details of the agreement will be finalized within two weeks with Qinghai University for Nationalities, our cooperator there," said Louis Thompson, Assistant Dean for Graduate and International Programs of the school.

Thompson made his remarks during a ceremony marking the 10th anniversary of Temple's Rule of Law Program in China, which was co-sponsored by Temple University and the State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs of China, the main body to bring foreign experts into this country.

In 1999, China invited Temple University's Beasley School of Law to educate Chinese legal professionals and thus a Beijing-based Master of Laws (LL.M.)program in partnership with Tsinghua University School of Law came into being.

"Today, besides the LL.M. program, we provide several other initiatives including non-degree educational programs for judges and prosecutors, which the Qinghai program belongs to, AIDS and public health law training and workshops, law drafting and implementation projects for Chinese lawmakers and more," said JoAnne A. Epps, dean of the law school during the ceremony.

Within the past decade, more than 900 Chinese legal professionals have participated in at least one of Temple's Rule of Law programs which receives support from public and private US donors.

"Our goal is to help Chinese legal professionals from more places in China to expose to American principles of legal reasoning, and to equip them with new analytical and legal advocacy abilities," said Louis.

"And from the process, we certainly learned that China is making great efforts in improving the legal system. And Chinese government cares about their people. We will certainly take these messages back to the United States," he added.

Founded in 1884, Temple University is a state-related public research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Temple University's Beasley School of Law has been in operation since 1895.