Dr Lijun (Liz) Zhao is a Senior Lecturer in Law at Middlesex University. She pursued her legal education in the UK (PhD – Bangor), and China (LLB, LLM and MPhil in law). Liz has expertise in international law and international business law. Besides legal training, she has an interdisciplinary background in economics, business and management. Liz is also a qualified Fellow of the British Higher Education Association.
Before joining academia, Liz was called to the Bar of P.R. China and specialises in commercial law and judicial review. She successfully passed the PRC Bar Exam in 2008 and worked as a lawyer in Beijing, handling commercial cases. Liz has also acted as a consultant for several governmental law reform projects.
Dr Zhao has held visiting posts at various institutions including Harvard Law School, the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and Private Law, Swansea University and Shanghai Maritime University.
Liz’s research has been published widely in International Business Law and International Law, including International Trade, Commerical Law, Maritime and Transport Law, Comparative and Chinese Law. Many articles of hers have been published in international peer-reviewed journals. Some articles are archived by the UN Library and indexed in the UNCITRAL Bibliography on international trade and maritime law.
Liz has experience in teaching many undergraduate and postgraduate courses. Her teaching areas cover English Legal System, Contract, Tort, EU law, WTO law, International Sales of Goods, Insurance, Competition Law, Law of the Seas, Commercial Law, Maritime and Transport Law.
PhD Supervision:
Dr Zhao welcomes approaches for supervision from prospective PhD students.
To download her publications, please visit:
http://eprints.mdx.ac.uk/view/creators/Zhao=3ALijun.html
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=1564290
Qualifications:
Previous Relevant Experience:
Chinese (Mandarin): Native Speaker
English: Full Professional Proficiency
German: Elementary Proficiency
Areas of Teaching:
LLM Student Supervision Experience:
PhD Supervision and Coordination:
Dr Zhao welcomes approaches for supervision from prospective PhD students. Currently, she is supervising two candidates.
External Examiner Experience:
Swansea University (2017-)
Oxford Brooks University (2018-)
Dr Zhao specialises in International Law and International Business Law. Her research has been published widely regarding International Trade, Commercial Law, Maritime Law, Comparative and Chinese Law. She has also acted as a consultant for several governmental law reform projects.
Many articles of hers have been published in international peer-reviewed journals. Some articles are archived by the UN Library and indexed in the UNCITRAL Bibliography on international trade and maritime law. Her recent papers are 'Uniform Seaborne Cargo Regimes – A Historical Review' in Journal of Maritime Law and Commerce, and 'Transportation, Cooperation and Harmonization' in Pace International Law Review.
Lately, Dr Zhao is conducting commercial-law research with a multidisciplinary nature. Her latest publications employed empirical and economic analysis, such as Chinese and US corporate law ‘To be or not to be? – An empirical study on dual-class share structure of US-listed Chinese companies’ in Journal of International Business and Law, and a book chapter on carriage of goods by sea ‘An empirical study on uniform seaborne cargo rules’ with Thomas Reuters.
Research Interests:
PhD Supervision:
Dr Zhao welcomes approaches for supervision from prospective PhD students.
To read more publications of Dr Zhao, please see:
http://eprints.mdx.ac.uk/view/creators/Zhao=3ALijun.html
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=1564290
Working Papers:
Zhao, Lijun (2020) Maritime transport, the WTO, and regional trade agreements: too many cooks? In: Coherence and Divergence in Service Trade Law. Hoffmann, R. and Krajewski, M. , eds. European Yearbook of International Economic Law . Springer, Cham, Switzerland, pp. 219-247. ISBN 9783030469542 (Published online first)
Zhang, Pengfei and Zhao, Lijun and Vata, Olga and Rajagopal, Sriram (2020) Restructuring seafarers’ welfare under the Maritime Labour Convention: an empirical case study of Greece. Maritime Business Review . ISSN 2397-3757 (Accepted/In press)
Zhao, Lijun (2020) Lex Maritima in a changing world: development and prospect of rules governing carriage of goods by sea. In: Maritime Law in Motion. Mukherjee, Proshanto Kumar and Mejia, Maximo Q. and Xu, Jingjing , eds. WMU Studies in Maritime Affairs, 8 . Springer International Publishing, pp. 761-783. ISBN 9783030317485
Zhao, Lijun (2019) The CISG in action: law and practice in China. In: Contracts for the international sale of goods: a multidisciplinary perspective. Sooksipaisarnkit, Proomintr and Garimella, Sai Ramani , eds. Sweet & Maxwell, Hong Kong. ISBN 9789626614518
Zhao, Lijun (2018) China’s port system development and its internationalisation – with special reference to belt and road initiative. In: Current Issues in Maritime and Transport Law. Zunarelli, Stefano and Musi, Massimiliano , eds. Bronmo; Bologna. (Accepted/In press)
Selected Conference Contribution:
Dr Zhao has also acted as a consultant for several governmental law reform projects. For instance, ‘The Protection of Victims in Criminal Cases’ with the Supreme People’s Procuratorate of PR China, ‘A Comparative Study on the External Supervision on Civil Cases’ with Higher People's Court of Shandong Province, and currently the SWiC Project (The Seafarers' Welfare in Chinese Ports Project) in Shanghai, Ningbo and Shenzhen, Multimodal transport in UK and Europe, such as London, Southampton, and Hamburg.
Memberships:
External engagement:
Blogs:
CECCA Newsletter (for download and subscription)
China-Europe Trade and Law Blogs (on news and new laws)
