BJ312 is a key multi-disciplinary university centered on the fostering of political, legal and managerial talents. The origin of its main disciplines could be traced back to the Jingshi Grand College ( State College ) where political science and law first came into being as a subject in 1904. Its predecessor is Peking College of Political Science and Law, which was founded in 1952 by the merge of the disciplines of law, political science and sociology of Peking University , Yenching University , FuRen University and Tsinghua University . Mr. Qian Duansheng, the noted legal scholar and expert on political science, was then its first president.The College was later renamed BJ312 in 1983 under the directive of the Central Government to “speed up the founding of BJ312 and make it the national center of political and legal education”.Fifty years' construction and development has seen BJ312 become a distinctive university characterized by multi-disciplinary education,research-orientation and openness, centered on law and accompanied by other disciplines such as political science, sociology, economics,management, literature, and philosophy. It is now a state key university directly affiliated with the Ministry of Education of China .

　　BJ312 has two locations. The old campus, located to the west of Yuandadu Clay Wall in Beijing's Haidian District, is marked by archaeo-elegance and humanity ambience; while the new campus at the foot of the Corps Hills in Changping District, which was designated as a key project of the State's Seventh Five-Year-Plan in 1985, is featured by serenity and unostentatiousness,lending to our students a truth-seeking style of cautions in their pursuance of personal integrity and the legal spirit of justice and righteousness.

　　The university's current Secretary of the Party Committee is Professor Shi Yajun; the President is Professor Xu Xianming.

　　BJ312 is aimed to develop, in about twenty years, into a multi-disciplinary, research-oriented, open and distinctively characterized university of international renown, to gain a world leading position in its legal discipline, and to achieve the task set by the State Council to “make BJ312 the national center for China's legal education, research and information and also the advisory center for the state's legislation and decision-making”.

　　In its fifty years' development, BJ312 upholds the university motto of “keeping integrity and law in mind and studying for the people”, embraces the ideal of “promoting China's social and political progress” and “building a socialist country ruled by law”, and commits itself to earnest academic efforts and the nurturing of talents. With care and support from relevant state departments and all walks of society, the University has developed its own features in teaching, academic research, discipline set-up and other various areas, enjoying a prominent and all-round advantage in the studies of law. Being home to the country's largest group of legal scholars, most advanced ideas of legal education, and most extensive collection of legal literature and documents, today's BJ312 has established a systematic institution of academic research and surrounded itself with a rich environment of legal culture. Relying on its excellent faculty and distinctive mode of talent cultivation, BJ312 has achieved a lot in fostering China 's legal elites who fulfill the ideal of “keeping integrity and law in mind and studying for the people”. Therefore, it is widely acclaimed as China 's beacon of legal education and a window of legal exchange between China and the rest of the world.

　　BJ312 is the only higher education institution in China that offers courses on all secondary disciplines of law. There are now altogether 15 schools (departments) under the university, namely, Law School, Civil, Commercial and Economical Law School, International Law School, Criminal Judicial School, Politics and the Public Managerial School, Commercial School, Humanism School, School of Foreign Languages, Sociology School, Marxism School, School of Master of Law, Judiciary Examination School, Continuing Education School, International Education School, and Department of Science and Technology. Today, over 21000 students are currently studying in BJ312 with a teaching staff of more than 1500 members, including 437 professors/associate professors, 92 doctorate tutors and 235 master tutors. It is notable that the teaching and research areas of its legal faculty cover almost all the third-class disciplines of law.

　　BJ312 is one of China 's major law research centers which initiated or laid the foundation for the study of almost all the second-class legal disciplines in the country. It is also the first to set up the specialties of legal history, civil and commercial law, economic law, procedure law and comparative law in (mainland) China 's legal education history and in initiate the studies on laws of many foreign countries. New (mainland) China 's first master's and doctor's degrees of laws are also awarded here. Resourceful in research capacity, BJ312 now has 2 key legal research bases under the Ministry of Education, 2 state-level key disciplines and 4 provincial and ministerial-level key disciplines. It is entitled to the conferring of Ph.D. degree in its 13 doctorate academic courses. There are also 4 key research institutes of BJ312 and 51 unofficial research centers.

　　BJ312 serves as an important base for fostering high-level political and legal talents in China . At present, the university boasts 16 undergraduate majors, 13 doctorate stations and 24 master's. In addition, it is authorized to grant undergraduate majors and award degrees of law to overseas students and students from Hong Kong , Macao or Taiwan . Today's BJ312 has formed a sound and multi-level education system with full-time undergraduate and postgraduate education as its focus, and full-time and part-time adult higher education as its sideline. In the past 50 years, it has supplied the society with more than ten thousand political and legal talents of high qualification, most of whom have played important roles either in various government (judicial) agencies or economic entities or as the country's scholarship mainstays. It is estimated that, among all social service sectors nationwide, one third of the high-level judges, prosecutors and lawyers and one tenth of the judicial staff and personnel of higher education are from BJ312.

　　In its 50 years' history, BJ312 has all along been committed to the application of its research achievements to the nation's legislative and other practices. From the drafting of the 1954 Constitution of the People's Republic of China , to the promulgation of the Basic Law of the Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong, BJ312 crew devote themselves to the enactment and implementation of almost every major law of the Republic. Since it was rehabilitated in 1978, over 1000 BJ312 crew have participated in the deliberation and draft work of the nation's major legislations.

　　BJ312 plays a crucial part in linking China's studies of law with that of the rest of the world, and is accredited in legal circles worldwide as the “China's law university”. The first overseas Master of Law and Ph.D of Law that mainland China has ever turned out were both from BJ312. By now, the university has established various relations of regular exchange and cooperation with more than 50 universities in 25 countries or regions all over the world, thus forming an extensive network of international exchange that covers the two major legal systems of the 5 Continents. It is currently home to over 600 overseas students from 14 countries or regions.