On May 20, 2022, the China-EU School of Law (CESL) Lecture Series on “Supervising and Writing of Master's Thesis” was successfully held online. The speaker, Mr. Zhao Tianshu, gave a speech on how to write an economic law master thesis from a doctrinal and non-doctrinal perspective. All CESL double master’s students from the 2021 intake participated in the lecture.

Mr. ZHAO first emphasized the current trend of increasingly strict thesis defence and explained the review mechanism. He draw students’ attention to thesis writing in this way. Afterwards, Mr. ZHAO pointed out that piling up and misusing various theories is a common problem for many students in writing their thesis. This practice ignores the relationship between the theories involved and the context, and even conflicts between various theories. Therefore, students at this moment should focus on stopping the misuse of extra-didactic theories and instead find the reasonable use of various theories.

Furthermore, Mr. ZHAO pointed out that students should develop an awareness that the doctrinal position is the most fundamental position and that economic law papers under the traditional doctrinal position usually start from real judgments. Therefore, students should spend a lot of time to find valuable and controversial decisions, which will be of great benefit to them in writing their economic law papers. Mr. ZHAO also explained specific norms, one example being the commercial bribery provisions of the Law Against Unfair Competition of the People’s Republic of China.

During the Question and Answer Session, students actively interacted with Mr. ZHAO on the topic selection and writing skills of an economic law thesis. Mr. ZHAO answered patiently and gave detailed advice, urging students to communicate more with their supervisors about their thesis, and also welcomed them to communicate with him at any time on their difficulties in writing.

Written by: WANG Bijia, CESL double master from 2021 intake
Photographed by: WANG Yingqi, CESL double master from 2021 intake
Translated by: LI Wenyi, CESL double master from 2021 intake