On June 3, 2018, Consultant Xin Zhang from East & Concord Partners was invited to attend the “2018 International Forum for Law School Students—The Challenge to Law Brought by Digital World” held by Renmin University of China Law School. In this forum, all speeches were required to be delivered in English. Consultant Xin Zhang was the commentator in the second session “Experience from Different Jurisdictions”.

The International Forum for Law School Students has been held five times so far. It invites outstanding students from all over the world to exchange ideas and has inspired many participants. Commentators for four sessions were Associate Professor Xiaodong Ding, vice president of the Research Institute on Future Rule of Law, Renmin University of China Law School, Professor Yong Wan from Renmin University of China Law School, Assistant Professor Wenliang Zhang from Renmin University of China Law School, and Professor Lloyd Wilson from Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law. 

Consultant Xin Zhang first recognized students from the National University of Mongolia School of Law, Renmin University of China Law School and Nepal Kathmandu School of Law for their understanding and analyses of challenges in the era of digital economy from different professional perspectives in this session. The topic selected by each student possessed some academic value and practical significance; their researches, whether from criminal law, labor law or property law perspective, all touched on the current realistic challenges. Mr. Zhang also pointed out that in the absence of new legislation, whether we could try to apply the rule of law to solve the problems caused by the digital economy. It is known that legislation takes time and resources, and law is relatively lagging. In a changing era of digital economy, a flexible application of the rule of law might be a solution to some extent. He also suggested students add some empirical studies and to supplement solutions from the effectiveness and operability of institutional supervision. Moreover, challenges brought by the digital economy are a global issue, and therefore the solutions to many problems might need closer international cooperation. With this premise, it might be helpful to study how to construct an effective international cooperation mechanism to handle existing problems.

Professor Yi Wang, Dean of Renmin University of China Law School and professor Aoki Hitoshi, Director of the Asian Exchange Center in Hitotsubashi University as well as outstanding law school students from law schools in University of Oxford, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Hitotsubashi University and Korea University, eight law schools in Paris, the Sydney Law School and Université de Genève Law School, and students for the 2018 Chinese Law Program also attended the forum.