On the afternoon of January 13 President Ma Ying-jeou met with Dean Trevor Morrison of the New York University (NYU) School of Law. In addition to extending a cordial welcome the president also called for continued bilateral academic exchanges, and briefed his visitor on the current state of development in the ROC and efforts undertaken here to implement human rights safeguards.
In remarks, President Ma noted that Dean Morrison is a well-known scholar in constitutional law who has an outstanding reputation and once served as associate counsel to President Barack Obama. The professor thus has a lot of practical experience, said President Ma.
President Ma stated that NYU is a world-class institution that has turned out 37 Nobel laureates and countless other outstanding individuals. The president and his wife Chow Mei-ching (周美青) have both studied at the NYU School of Law, while their eldest daughter, Ma Wei-chung (馬唯中), is a graduate of the NYU Program in Museum Studies. In 2013, while passing through New York on his way to visit several of the ROC's diplomatic allies, the president stopped by NYU and was hosted by then NYU President John Sexton. At that time, said President Ma, he invited his Master's advisor, Professor Andreas F. Lowenfeld, to dinner.
Commenting on the ROC's achievements in safeguarding human rights, President Ma pointed out that the nation descended into war and chaos after its founding, and was under martial law from 1949 to 1987. However, thanks to the efforts of the government and other sectors, Taiwan has now carried out five direct presidential elections, and a sixth will be held on January 16. Taiwan's march to democracy has attracted close international interest, said the president. When he was elected president eight years ago, for example, US President George W. Bush sent a congratulatory telegram in which he described Taiwan as "a beacon of democracy to Asia and the world." And President Obama, during a 2014 speech in Australia, praised Taiwan's "thriving democracy." In addition, in its Freedom in the World 2015 report, the US human rights organization Freedom House lists Taiwan as a free country, and gives Taiwan a top rating of 1 for political rights and 2 for civil liberties. It is thus clear that the international community holds Taiwan in high regard.
President Ma stated that he ratified two United Nations human rights covenants in 2009—the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR)—and the Legislative Yuan passed an act for their implementation, thus incorporating the covenants into domestic law so that the ROC's executive and judicial agencies could rely on those covenants as the legal basis for actions and decisions. Since then, the ROC government has taken the same approach by incorporating other international covenants into domestic law through passage of the following: the Enforcement Act for the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women; the Enforcement Act of the Convention on the Rights of the Child; the Act to Implement the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities; and the Act to Implement the United Nations Convention against Corruption.
President Ma pointed out that in 2010 the ROC established the Presidential Office Human Rights Consultative Committee and in 2012 issued its Initial State Reports on the ICCPR & ICESCR. In 2013, the government invited ten international experts to come to Taiwan to review the report, and central government officials and representatives of non-governmental human rights organizations took part in the review process. These actions were unprecedented, and elicited strong praise internationally.
Turning to the subject of Taiwan-US relations, President Ma noted that it has now been 37 years since the US Congress passed the Taiwan Relations Act to govern the conduct of bilateral relations following the severance of diplomatic ties in 1979. After taking office in 2008, he promptly set about rebuilding mutual trust, and concrete results have been achieved in recent years. US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Susan Thornton, for example, has publicly recognized that Taiwan-US relations have never been better.
Commenting on bilateral educational exchanges and cooperation, President Ma stated that over 21,000 people from Taiwan were studying in the US last year, making the US the number one choice among those choosing to study abroad, and that Taiwan is the sixth largest source of foreign students in the US. In recent years, in order to further encourage young people to study in the US, Taiwan's Ministry of Education has entered into cooperative programs with many top US universities, and sends graduate students as well as post-doctoral researchers to the US under bilateral exchange programs. In addition, Taiwan each year sends selected prosecutors and judges to serve as visiting scholars at the NYU School of Law. Looking to the future, the president expressed hope that US students will also study in Taiwan under the Fulbright Program, Taiwan Scholarship program, or other such programs, so as to deepen interaction and cooperation between Taiwan and the US in education-related fields.