The Academic Seminar on “Social Transformation and Development of the Criminal Law Science” was held in Beijing on November 2-3, 2019. The seminar, as a part of the CASS Innovation Project Forum (2019), was sponsored by CASS Law Institute in celebration of the 70^th anniversary of the establishment of the People’s Republic of China and was attended by about 100 experts and scholars from over 40 universities, research institutions as well as legislative, judicial and government organs in China, including CASS, Peking University, Tsinghua University, Renmin University of China, China University of Political Science and Law, Beijing Normal University, Beijing Foreign Studies University, Beihang University, University of International Business and Economics, Chinese People's Public Security University, Beijing Institute of Technology, Jilin University, Liaoning University, Shandong University, Tianjin University, Hebei University, Henan University, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Huadong University of Political Science and Law, Nanjing University, Zhejiang University, Suzhou University, Hunan University Shenzhen University, Hainan University, Southwest University of Political Science and Law, Yunnan University, Guizhou University, Northwest University of Political Science and Law, Xinjiang Shihezi University, the Legislative Affairs Commission of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, the Supreme People’s Court, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Public Security.

At the opening ceremony, presided over by Professor Liu Renwen, Head of the Criminal Law Department of CASS Law Institute, opening remarks were made by Professor Chen Su, Director of CASS Law Institute, Mr. Li Shaoping, Vice President of the Supreme People’s Court, Mr. Tong Jianming, Vice Procurator-General of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, Mr. Lang Sheng, the former vice chairman of the Legislative Affairs Commission of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, Professor Chu Huaizhi from the Law School of Peking University, and Professor Chen Zexian, an executive vice chairman of China Criminal Law Society.

At the two-day seminar, which was divided into seven units, the participants gave presentations and carried out discussions on various issues around the following topics: development of the criminal law in the 70 years since the establishment of the New China; the expansion of the criminal law and the outlook on criminal legislation; the relationship between crime and punishment and the improvement of the structure of criminal punishment; frontier issues of cybercrime; big data, AI and criminal law; integration of the criminal system and three-dimensional criminal law science; and the overlapping between criminal law and civil law and the linkage between criminal law and administrative law.