This article explores the large-scale deployment of Chinese soldiers during the Vietnam War as part of China's aid to Laos, especially its logistical and military support for the Pathet Lao, in the geopolitical context of competition with America in mainland Southeast Asia. This article spotlights the history of China's clandestine campaign in Laos in the late 1960s to 1970s, based on recent articles, books, unpublished or informally published memoirs by and interviews with ex-servicemen, mainly lower-ranking officers, soldiers and army engineers who found themselves in an unknown Southeast Asian country. While the Chinese troops were spurred on by their sense of patriotism and socialist internationalism, they also desired peace so that they could return home. Many of the then young soldiers struggled to adjust to a campaign fought in the unfamiliar environment of northern Laos, and were traumatised by the sight of fallen comrades. It is these very same Chinese soldiers who fought in Laos who have become the main advocates of the declassification of China's secret war through their publications and social media postings, although their accounts are not officially endorsed or published for the mass market and this knowledge remains largely within their circles.

Medical legal partnerships address individual legal needs that can create impediments to health. Little is known about outcomes from medical legal partnerships and their relationship to access to justice. This paper reports outcomes from one medical legal partnership from the perspective of the client, with specific emphasis on impact on health and concepts related to access to justice. We suggest a conceptual model for incorporating medical legal partnerships into a broader framework about access to justice.

This paper challenges historically preconceived notions surrounding a minor’s ability to make medical decisions, arguing that federal health law should be reformed to allow minors with capacity as young as age 12 to consent to their own Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC)-approved COVID-19 vaccinations. This proposal aligns with and expands upon current exceptions to limitations on adolescent decision-making. This analysis reviews the historic and current anti-vaccination sentiment, examines legal precedence and rationale, outlines supporting ethical arguments regarding adolescent decision-making, and offers rebuttals to anticipated ethical counterarguments.

My presidential address is an attempt to connect two themes: my own work in the field of global governance and the theme of the 2023 APSA Annual Meeting, “Rights and Responsibilities in an Age of Mis- and Disinformation.” Most work on disinformation focuses on domestic-level politics.1 However, I would argue that it also presents a major challenge to global governance, and research on disinformation on the international level deserves greater attention.

In the most important funding decision in 20 years, the UK Supreme Court has declared in R. (PACCAR Inc. and others) v Competition Appeal Tribunal and others [2023] UKSC 28, [2023] 1 W.L.R. 2594 that, as a matter of statutory interpretation, a third-party funder’s litigation funding agreement (LFA) is a damages-based agreement (DBA) because third-party funders are offering “claims management services”. This decision, which overturned both the earlier Divisional Court and the Competition Appeal Tribunal decisions, and long-held industry and judicial understanding, has had an immediate impact upon UK litigation. Many LFAs will require immediate re-negotiation, given their non-compliance with the DBA legislation; but for some, the ramifications are much more serious. This article traces the legislation, soft law and law reform activity which preceded this momentous event; it suggests that a key principle of statutory interpretation which governed the outcome might arguably be re-evaluated in future case law; it discusses the possibility of legislative reversal; and it predicts the ramifications of the PACCAR decision upon (especially consumer) litigation unless reversed.