Elements of Asian Laws

Asian laws, as an interdisciplinary area of academic inquiry, has institutional elements (institutions to support the study of Asian laws) and substantive elements (a body of scholarship on Asian laws).

The study of Asian laws is embedded in institutions. These institutions collect, analyze, generate, and disseminate materials about Asian laws. Law schools and law libraries are general institutions and are obvious starting points. However, there are also specific institutions dedicated to Asian legal studies, such as research centers/programs, journals, associations, and courses. The institutions of Asian legal studies can be regional, jurisdictional, and/or subject-based. Regional institutions cover the laws of the entire Asian region (pan-Asia) or subregion (e.g., East Asia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia). Jurisdictional institutions cover the laws of a particular Asian jurisdiction (e.g., China, Japan, or South Korea). Subject-based institutions focus on particular fields in Asian laws, such as commercial law or constitutional law.

The study of Asian laws involves the production of substantive bodies of scholarship. This scholarship is produced by both specialists in Asian laws and scholars specializing in more general fields, such as international and comparative law, which encompass Asian laws. I conducted a general survey of scholarship on Asian laws published over the last six decades. Given the global scope of this study, however, a meticulous examination of Asian laws scholarship was unrealistic. Rather, I focused on general patterns in the development of the scholarship, although I refer to specific literature to illustrate these patterns and trends.

Data Collection

This study looks at data about Asian legal studies from around the world. The data includes facts and statistics about centers, programs, associations, journals, book series, courses, and scholarship pertaining to Asian laws. The data was created based on a study of websites and web pages of relevant institutions. The data is presented chronologically (to identify regular patterns) and by jurisdiction in the different continents (to demonstrate the global expansion of studies in Asian laws). But this should not mislead that the study of Asian laws constitutes a series of silos.

Limitations

Given the global coverage, some limitations are necessary to render the study realistic. First, this study covers East, Southeast, South, and Central Asia. It does not deal with the Middle East due to my limited knowledge of its legal scholarship, although Islamic law, which originated in the Middle East, is covered.Footnote ⁶ Second, I focus mainly on Asian legal studies in law schools, while I acknowledge there is such scholarship produced in some social science departments.Footnote ⁷ Third, due to linguistic limitations, I only studied the data available in English; there may be relevant data in other languages. Fourth, I focus on the study of Asian laws after World War II, when the field was substantively developed, although there are relevant Western writings in the early 20th century and earlier.Footnote ⁸ Finally, the data presented here is not exhaustive: it is illustrative of the extensive and global development of Asian laws as a field of study.

A. Overviews

The study of Asian laws has been increasingly institutionalized around the world. These include fifty-seven Asian laws centers/programs, fifty-four Asian laws journals, ten Asian laws associations, and numerous Asian laws courses.

Asian Laws Centers/Programs: Asian laws centers/programs are academic and educational institutions dedicated to learning, researching, and teaching Asian laws. Asian laws centers/programs essentially conduct four activities, although these vary among institutions. First, they hold such events as conferences, workshops, seminars, and book talks. These events serve various purposes, such as communicating with the public, disseminating knowledge, and improving working papers. Second, they have educative activities engaging students. Students can assist in organizing the events and can participate in them, thereby deepening their knowledge of Asian laws. Some centers/programs design curricula on Asian laws. Third, they undertake research projects on Asian laws. Often, these are collaborative projects led by members of the centers/programs, with participants who may include center/program members and people from other institutions. The output of the collaborative projects can be journal articles, edited books, or special journal issues. For the research function, centers/programs may have postdoc positions available and engage doctoral students. Finally, the centers/programs can function as institutional platforms for connecting people interested in Asian laws. For this function, the centers/programs may have visiting or fellowship programs and annual lectures. The events these centers/programs organize also create opportunities for people to exchange views, connect with one another, and introduce others to Asian laws scholarship.

I identified fifty-seven Asian laws centers/programs located in fourteen countries on four continents. Most of these centers/programs are located in the West, which indicates that Asian laws, like the laws of others, have been studied more outside of Asia than inside. The US has the most Asian laws centers/programs (28) in the world. Sub-regional centers/programs are largely concentrated in US law schools that focus more on East Asian laws (6) than South Asian laws (1) and Southeast Asian laws (1). Jurisdictional centers/programs largely focus on large and developed countries in Asia. I identified fifteen Chinese laws centers/programs in four continents, followed by four Japanese laws centers/programs, which are largely based in the US. Other jurisdictional centers/programs focus on Korean laws (2), Indian laws (2), Indonesian laws (1), and Myanmarese laws (1). Subject-based centers/programs (6) tend to focus on practical concerns in Asia, such as commercial, business, international economic, intellectual property and technology, and environmental law, as well as courts more generally.

The creation of Asian laws centers/programs is driven by a common instrumental motivation that signals institutional commitments to Asian lawsFootnote ⁹ and the coordination of educational and research works about that field, as well as by cognitive motivation in supporting the expansion of knowledge about Asian laws. Some Asian laws centers/programs operate as institutional actors of law and development. They are the platforms for supporting legal advancements in developing Asian countries by hosting legal scholars, researchers, and students and supporting their work and studies. They can also act as a law and development agency by providing legal advice to Asian developing countries. Apart from instrumental signaling and coordinating, Asian laws centers/programs function as platforms for discovering and expanding people’s knowledge of Asian laws.

Asian Laws Associations: Learned societies or organizations have been created to promote the field of Asian laws. I identified ten Asian laws associations created on four continents. Asian laws associations include regional associations, such as the Law Association for Asia and the Pacific and the Asian Law School Association. Jurisdictional associations tend to focus on Chinese laws, including the European China Law Studies Association and the International Society for Chinese Law & History. The subject-based associations include the Asian Legal History Association and the Asian Society of International Law. Asian laws associations are the institutional platforms for scholars to connect and define the field, disseminate their research, and engage in collaborative research. For these purposes, the associations normally organize annual or biannual conferences and thematic workshops.

Asian Laws Book Series and Journals: Over one hundred thousand books and journal articles on “Asian law” have been published.Footnote ¹⁰ In addition to commercial publishers, leading university presses have published books on Asian laws. In the US, these include Harvard, Princeton, and Stanford, and in the UK, Cambridge and Oxford.Footnote ¹¹ Apart from general publications, some university presses and commercial publishers have created special series dedicated to Asian laws, including Harvard, Princeton, Washington, and Oxford. Other commercial publishers, namely Hart, Routledge, Edward Elgar Publishing, and Brill, have also published book series on Asian laws.

In addition to books, thousands of journal articles on Asian laws have been published. These include some top general-topic, peer-reviewed law journals in the UK, such as the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies and the Modern Law Review, and in the US, the Harvard Law Review, Columbia Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, University of Chicago Law Review, and the Cornell Law Review. The publications in general law journals and reviews are a sign of the broader interest in Asian laws. Asian laws scholarship has also been published in specialized law journals in various fields (e.g., comparative law, international law, and law and society) without a regional focus.

There are, however, a large number of journals dedicated to Asian laws, which are published on four continents. The Washington & Lee Law Journal Rankings report fifty Asian laws journals.Footnote ¹² Based on that report, and supplementing it with other journals, institutional affiliations, and establishment years, I created a list of fifty-four Asian laws journals (see Appendix 4). Oxford University Press (OUP) and Cambridge University Press (CUP) house several peer-reviewed journals on Asian laws. There are also student-edited Asian laws journals in several US law schools (e.g., Columbia, UPenn, and UCLA), which reflect the American tradition of law reviews. But student-edited Asian laws journals are produced in other places, such as the UK, China, and Hong Kong.

Asian Laws Courses: Asian laws are taught on five continents. Asian laws courses are reflected in curriculum design in law schools in two ways. First, they are integrated into the teaching curricula of general degrees in law (e.g., JD, LLB, and LLM). The regional courses tend to focus on East Asian and Southeast Asian laws. The Asian jurisdictions-based courses concentrate on the laws of large and developed countries, such as China, Japan, and South Korea. China is the most common jurisdictional focus of Asian laws courses. The subject-based classes tend to highlight such areas as constitutionalism, foreign investment laws, and commercial law. Second, Asian laws courses are sometimes included in specifically designed degrees (e.g., LLB, LLM, and PhD).

Institutions such as Asian laws centers, journals, associations, and courses may have their own functions, but they share common purposes—namely, expression, coordination, diffusion, capacity building, and networking.

First, institutions that offer Asian legal studies reflect an institution’s commitment to the study of Asian laws. A law school’s establishment of an Asian laws center/program, journal, or course demonstrates the school’s institutional dedication and promise to regularize engagement with teaching, researching, and learning Asian laws. A society of Asian laws is likewise expressive of a collective commitment to foster the development of the study of Asian laws.

Second, institutions supporting the study of Asian laws coordinate the work of relevant actors. Large-scale, diverse, and complicated issues pertaining to Asian laws that involve numerous people and jurisdictions may go beyond individual efforts and require institutional coordination. Asian laws centers/programs are created to effectively organize and integrate people in large-scale research projects and diverse academic activities (e.g., fellowships, seminars, and conferences). Asian laws associations are also institutional platforms for coordinating large-scale activities (e.g., annual mega-conferences) that involve numerous participants. Asian laws journals coordinate scholarship publication, which involves multiple processes (e.g., submission, review, editing, production, etc.) and people (e.g., editors, authors, and producers). Asian laws courses also organize and connect various individuals (e.g., students, teachers, and administrators) with coherent processes (e.g., course design, teaching, examination, and feedback).

Third, institutions that offer Asian legal studies diffuse knowledge. Seminars, workshops, conferences, and lectures organized by these institutions function as mechanisms for disseminating knowledge about Asian laws. The institutional diffusion of knowledge about Asian laws may take place at different levels: in the classroom, in the academic community beyond the classroom, and in the broader public beyond the academic circle.

Fourth, institutions underpinning the study of Asian laws play the role of building intellectual capacity. These institutions develop and strengthen individuals’ skills, methods, and abilities to acquire, generate, and disseminate knowledge about Asian laws. They can foster capacity building by organizing classroom or public lectures, offering professional workshops on writing skills and methodology, theory, and publishing academic work, and arranging formal or informal mentorships and fellowships.

Fifth, institutions of Asian legal studies facilitate networking. They create platforms for connecting and building relationships among diverse people (e.g., students, junior and senior scholars, lawyers, and other legal practitioners) who have a common interest in Asian laws. Particularly, mega-conferences organized by Asian laws centers/programs and associations are the prominent institutional venues for assembling diverse people to exchange scholarship on Asian laws and foster their connections. Individuals who share a common interest in Asian laws may join journal staffs, playing different roles (e.g., editors, advisors, and contributors). Asian laws courses also create an environment to connect students with other students, students with teachers, and teachers with other teachers who have a common interest in studying and learning about Asian laws.

The sections below provide more detail on the institutional development of Asian legal studies across five continents.

B. The Americas

US Law Schools: Many elite and other law schools in the US have created permanent centers dedicated to the study of Asian laws and have scholars who publish Asian laws scholarship, sponsor Asian laws journals, and offer courses on Asian laws. To illustrate, consider the information below:

• ▪ The University of Chicago Law School has offered “Buddhism and Comparative Constitutional Law,” taught by Professor Tom Ginsburg, a world-renowned scholar of international and comparative law who has published extensively on comparative constitutional law in Asia.

• ▪ Columbia Law School has three centers on Asian laws (i.e., Japan, China, and Korea), which involve faculty members specializing in these areas. Columbia Law also has an Asian laws journal. The law school offers a wide range of courses on Chinese laws, in addition to courses on Japanese and Korean laws.

• ▪ Cornell Law School has an East Asian laws and culture program directed by Professor Yun-chien Chang, an expert on East Asian laws, and the school has offered a course on North Korean laws, Chinese laws, and East Asian laws and culture.

• ▪ Duke Law School has offered a course on Chinese laws taught by Professor Shitong Qiao, an expert on comparative law, property, and urban laws in China.

• ▪ The Georgetown University Law Center has an Asian laws center, a course on Chinese laws, and academics producing scholarship on Chinese laws and public laws in Southeast Asia.

• ▪ Harvard Law School has the US’s oldest program dedicated to the study of East Asian laws. The school has offered courses on Chinese and Japanese laws and has scholars producing scholarship in both of these areas.

• ▪ The Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law and the Renmin University of China School of Law in Beijing have operated the Joint Center for Asian Law Studies since 2010.

• ▪ The University of Michigan Law School has programs in Chinese and Japanese laws and has offered courses on Chinese laws and law and development in India.

• ▪ The New York University (NYU) School of Law has a preeminent academic institute for the study of East Asian laws. Members of the institutes are experts on East Asian legal studies. NYU has offered various courses on Chinese laws and a course on Japanese laws.

• ▪ Stanford Law School operated the China Guiding Cases Project between 2011 and 2021.

• ▪ The University of California College of the Law, San Francisco, has an East Asian laws center, offers courses on Chinese and Japanese laws, and has scholars producing scholarship in both areas.

• ▪ The University of California, Berkeley School of Law has centers focusing on Japanese laws, Korean laws, China’s climate change, and Asian intellectual property (IP) laws (focusing on Chinese IP laws). The school also has scholars writing about Korean laws and Chinese IP laws.

• ▪ The University of California, Irvine School of Law has a center on Korean laws and an expert on Chinese laws.

• ▪ The University of Hawai‘i at Manoa William S. Richardson School of Law has one of the most comprehensive programs in Pacific and Asian laws in the US, an institute dedicated to Asian-Pacific business laws, and an Asian-Pacific law journal. The school offers a Pacific-Asian Legal Studies certificate that includes various Asian laws courses. The law school has faculty producing scholarship on Asian laws, particularly Japanese laws, Korean laws, Asian human rights systems, and human rights in Hong Kong.

• ▪ The University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School has an Asian laws center, an Asian laws journal, courses on Chinese and Japanese laws, and scholars publishing in the areas of Chinese and Japanese laws.

• ▪ The University of Washington School of Law has the oldest Asian laws center in the US. Its members include experts on Chinese laws and Islamic laws. The law school has an Asian laws-focused journal and has offered LLM and PhD degree programs in Asian laws and courses on Japanese, Chinese, and Islamic laws.

• ▪ The University of Virginia School of Law has offered a course on Chinese laws and has an internationally recognized expert (Professor David Law) on the comparative study of public laws and courts who possesses regional expertise on Asia.

• ▪ Vermont Law School created the US-Asia Partnerships for Environmental Law in 2006.

• ▪ The University of Wisconsin Law School in Madison has a center for the study of East Asian laws and a working group for South Asian legal history. The school has faculty producing scholarship on East and South Asian laws, particularly law and development in East Asia; constitutions and law and society in Vietnam; philanthropy and law in South Asia; and South Asian legal history.

Canada: The Centre for Asian Legal Studies at the Peter A. Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia includes “the largest group of academics teaching and researching Asian legal issues in Canada.”Footnote ¹³ The center focuses on the laws and legal cultures of China (including Taiwan), Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia. The center organizes conferences, a speaker series, and a visiting scholar program and offers courses in Asian laws.Footnote ¹⁴ Several law schools in Canada offer Asian laws courses. The Allard School of Law offers “Introduction to Asian Legal Systems”; “Chinese Law”: “Implications for Canada-China Relations”; and “Japanese Law: Business Law in Japan.” The University of Victoria Faculty of Law offers a course on “States, Companies, and Legal Orders in Asia.”

Brazil: The Center for Asian Legal Studies of the Faculty of Law of the University of São Paulo was created in 2014 and is probably the only Asian laws center in Latin America.Footnote ¹⁵ The creation of the center stemmed from the recognition that Asian legal studies are important due to “the increasing importance of Asian countries in the international arena, the substantial immigration of Asian peoples to Brazil, and the scarcity of research, academic production, and debates on the subject in Brazil.”Footnote ¹⁶ The center aims to produce and diffuse knowledge about legal systems, legal professions, and the dynamics of laws in Asia. Its activities include publishing papers by its members, holding academic events, and using social networks and the internet to share matters of interest.Footnote ¹⁷

C. Oceania

The field of Asian legal studies has an extensive tradition in Australia, given its geographic proximity to the Asian region. Melissa Crouch reports that there are thirty-four academics based in Australian law schools with permanent positions who primarily focus on Asian laws.Footnote ¹⁸ These thirty-four academics primarily focus on China, Indonesia, and India, followed by Japan, Singapore, and Malaysia.Footnote ¹⁹ However, these academics are based at just five out of the forty-four law schools in Australia.Footnote ²⁰ Their scholarship “has often been driven by themes relevant to public debate, bilateral trade relations and global commercial legal practice. This includes all aspects of commercial law; legal pluralism; criminal law, particularly terrorism; and constitutional law.”Footnote ²¹

Centers : In Australia, there are five centers dedicated to the study of Asian laws, which are housed at three law schools.

Melbourne Law School created the Asian Law Centre in 1985, which is considered “the first and largest Australian centre devoted to the development of our understanding of Asian laws and legal systems.”Footnote ²² Like its US counterparts, Melbourne’s Asian Law Centre originally focused on East Asia, particularly Japan, in the 1980s.Footnote ²³ Specifically, “[t]he Centre leadership, appreciating the significance of strong economic growth in Japan that would drive a need for commercial legal services, developed its capacity to research and write on the Japanese legal system.”Footnote ²⁴ Later, however, the Asian Law Centre expanded its jurisdictional scope. The center has conducted extensive programs for teaching and researching the law and legal systems of a wide range of countries and jurisdictions in the Asian region, including Japan, China, Indonesia, Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Timor Leste.Footnote ²⁵ The center has also engaged with other Asian countries, such as Korea, Thailand, Laos, and the Philippines.Footnote ²⁶ Members of the center include experts on Chinese, Indian, Indonesian, and Japanese laws, as well as Asian commercial laws. The center is currently directed by Professor Sarah Biddulph, an expert on Chinese laws. The former director of the center is Professor Pip Nicholson, an expert on Vietnamese laws.Footnote ²⁷

Melbourne Law School also created the jurisdictional Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society in 2013, which is dedicated to the study of Indonesian laws and Islamic legal studies.Footnote ²⁸ The center is directed by Professor Tim Lindsey, a specialist on various aspects of Indonesian laws, including public, criminal, commercial, and family laws.Footnote ²⁹

Sydney Law School created the Centre for Asian and Pacific Law in 1993. The center has legal experts in a wide variety of Asian jurisdictions, including China, Japan, Indonesia, and Malaysia. It organizes seminars, workshops, and conferences and hosts visiting scholars from all over Asia.Footnote ³⁰

The UNSW Faculty of Law & Justice created the China International Business and Economic Law Centre in 2015, which is dedicated to researching and teaching Chinese international business and economic laws. The center has a large number of Chinese scholars who have expertise in such areas as the global trading system, international dispute resolution, state-owned enterprises, and corporate laws.Footnote ³¹ The UNSW Faculty of Law & Justice also founded the Asia Law and Policy Forum in 2015 as “a network of researchers who foster and support research on law and politics in Asia.”Footnote ³²

Association : The Australia-based Law Association for Asia and the Pacific (LAWASIA) was created in 1966 as a regional association of lawyers, judges, jurists, and legal organizations.Footnote ³³ It “advocates for the interests of the legal profession, the cross-border exchange of legal resources, and commitment to the rule of law, professional integrity and human rights.”Footnote ³⁴ For this purpose, LAWASIA organizes legal conferences, seminars, and meetings throughout the year.Footnote ³⁵

Journals : Some Asian laws journals operate in Australia. The University of Melbourne Law School founded the Australian Journal of Asian Law in 1999. Published twice a year, this peer-reviewed journal seeks to operate as a forum for academic debates on the laws and legal cultures of Asia.Footnote ³⁶ LAWASIA has also published the LAWASIA Journal since 2008 under the General Editorship of the Centre for Public, International and Comparative Law at the T.C. Beirne School of Law at the University of Queensland.Footnote ³⁷

Courses : Australian law schools that support Asian laws offer jurisdictional courses (mostly on China, Japan, and Indonesia), regional courses (mostly on South Asia and Southeast Asia), and subject-based courses, such as “Human Rights in Asia”; “Rule of Law in Asia”; “Asian Competition Law”; “Drugs in Asia”; “Law and Investment in Asia”; and “Land Law and Development in Asia.”Footnote ³⁸ In New Zealand, some law schools have scholars on Chinese laws and offer courses on Chinese laws. For example, at the Victoria University of Wellington Faculty of Law, Dr. Ruiping Ye teaches the following courses: “Introduction to Chinese Legal Systems” and “Chinese Law in [the] New Zealand Context.”Footnote ³⁹ At the University of Otago Faculty of Law, Dr. Anna High teaches a course on Chinese laws.Footnote ⁴⁰

D. Europe

Asian laws have been studied in Europe for many years. This section explores the institutional development of Asian legal studies in various European countries based on the institutional categories of centers/programs, associations, publication platforms, and courses.

Centers/Programs : I identified fifteen Asian laws centers/programs in Europe. The UK has the largest number in Europe (7), followed by Germany (4), and Austria, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, and Russia have one center each. There are four region-based centers on Asian laws. Asian laws centers in continental Europe tend to focus on China, with six dedicated to the study of Chinese laws. Other country-based centers/programs focus on the laws of Japan, Korea, Myanmar, and India.

Austria: The Research Platform Asian Law seeks to improve and deepen cooperation with faculty partners in Asian countries. It has conducted projects related to various Asian countries, such as Bhutan, China, and Japan.Footnote ⁴¹

Germany has four Asian laws centers:

• ▪ The Centre of Expertise on Japan at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law was created as a center for Japanese laws in 1985.Footnote ⁴² The center is driven by the recognition of the influence of Japanese laws on other East Asian countries and the emergence of modern Japan as a “mixed legal system,” which incorporates legal concepts from different legal orders.Footnote ⁴³ The center conducts research, supports academic exchanges, fosters cooperation with guest researchers, publishes monographs and edited collections, and sponsors comparative symposia on Japanese laws (particularly Japanese civil, commercial, and economic laws).Footnote ⁴⁴

• ▪ The China Unit at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law was extended into the Centre of Expertise on China and Korea in 2002. The center conducts research, supports academic exchanges and cooperation, publishes monographs and edited collections, and sponsors comparative symposia concerning the evolution of civil law in China and Korea.Footnote ⁴⁵

• ▪ The Sino-German Institute for Law, a joint project of the Georg-August-University of Göttingen and the University of Nanjing, commenced its activities in 1989. It seeks to promote dialogue between German and Chinese legal cultures through cooperation in teaching, research, and legal practice. The institute initially focused on civil and commercial laws but turned to public laws in 2001.Footnote ⁴⁶

• ▪ The Department of Chinese Legal Culture at the University of Cologne was established in 1992. The department’s research and teaching cover, among others, constitutional and administrative laws, criminal and criminal procedure laws, judicial reforms, the social credit system, and Chinese positions on international law. The department maintains cooperation with partners in China and Hong Kong, and it frequently hosts conferences and workshops on contemporary issues of Chinese laws.Footnote ⁴⁷

Finland: The Finnish China Law Center was created in 2012 to coordinate and support research and education related to Chinese laws and legal culture. The center’s members include eight Finnish universities and the Institute of Criminology and Legal Policy. The University of Helsinki Faculty of Law serves as the center’s coordinator.Footnote ⁴⁸

The Netherlands: The China Law Centre seeks to promote Chinese laws research and education in the Netherlands; serves as a primary resource for cooperation between Dutch and Chinese academic institutions and government bodies; and facilitates the understanding of the Chinese legal system and its impact on international politics, law, and business.Footnote ⁴⁹ The center’s research projects focus on the rule of law in China and globalization’s impact on the Chinese legal system, EU-China trade and investment, and law and economic development.Footnote ⁵⁰

Norway: The Norwegian China Law Centre was created in 2017 at the University of Bergen Faculty of Law. The center aims “to increase the knowledge of Chinese law, and to foster a better understanding of the Chinese legal system, in the Norwegian society at large, and in particular among academics, PhD candidates, students and members of the industry and business community.”Footnote ⁵¹ For this goal, the center conducts such activities as student and teacher exchanges, research cooperation, and hosting Chinese scholars and PhD candidates.Footnote ⁵²

Russia: The Centre for Asian Legal Studies was created in 2016 at the Faculty of Law, Lomonosov Moscow State University. It aims to conduct research on Asian laws, expand Russian connections with the region, and develop educational courses.Footnote ⁵³

United Kingdom: There are seven centers/programs dedicated to the study of Asian laws in the UK.

• ▪ The Centre for Law in Asia at the SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies), University of London, was originally established in 1988 as the Centre for East Asian Law and is perhaps the UK’s oldest Asian laws center. The center widely covers South, Southeast, East, and Central Asian laws. The center has academics focusing on various aspects of Asian laws, including criminal laws, constitutional laws, human rights, the legal profession, sustainable development laws, and dispute resolution.Footnote ⁵⁴

• ▪ The Oxford-Burma/Myanmar Law Programme was created in 2012 as part of a university-wide effort to support Myanmar’s redevelopment.Footnote ⁵⁵ In addition to Oxford Faculty of Law-sponsored visits and lectures in Myanmar, the program has published two books: one on Myanmar’s contract laws and the other on private international law in Myanmar.Footnote ⁵⁶

• ▪ The Oxford Programme in Asian Laws (OPAL) was established in 2021 within the Oxford Faculty of Law to support and facilitate the long-term research and teaching of Asian laws. Professor Mindy Chen-Wishart, former Dean of the Oxford Faculty of Law, is one of OPAL’s founders.Footnote ⁵⁷ Members of OPAL include scholars and professors in the Faculty of Law and other departments at Oxford. By the end of 2023, the program had organized thirty-eight activities, including conferences/workshops, seminars, book talks, interviews, and public lectures.Footnote ⁵⁸

• ▪ The Centre for Chinese Law and Policy at Durham Law School was created in 2019, focusing its research on Chinese laws and policy issues of contemporary significance. The center organizes conferences, regular seminars, workshops, and dialogues. It also supports the teaching of Chinese laws by offering courses on Chinese laws within Durham Law School’s curriculum and developing extracurricular activities for students and scholars interested in studying Chinese laws.Footnote ⁵⁹

• ▪ The Centre for Indian Law and Policy at Durham Law School was established in 2023, becoming the first academic research center in Europe to focus on Indian laws. Its creation was spurred by the recognition that India plays a central role in the global economy and legal order of the 21st century. The center aims to conduct original and interdisciplinary research on Indian laws and policy.Footnote ⁶⁰

• ▪ The Chinese Law Society and Economy Research Interest Group was launched by the Northumbria Law School and the Faculty of Business and Law in 2019 as “a research outlet and platform for China-related socio-legal research.”Footnote ⁶¹ It seeks to promote China-related and comparative socio-legal and criminal justice studies, stimulate interdisciplinary and collaborative international studies, and operate as a platform for its members to showcase their research.Footnote ⁶²

• ▪ Manchester Law School launched the Manchester Asian Law Group in late 2024.

Association : The European China Law Studies Association was established in 2006. It seeks to provide an international venue for scholars and practitioners engaged in the study of Chinese laws from both comparative and interdisciplinary perspectives.Footnote ⁶³ The association currently has some three hundred members from around the world, and it organizes annual conferences, workshops, and summer schools.Footnote ⁶⁴

Book Series and Journals : Academics at the Oxford Faculty of Law initiated the Oxford Studies in Asian Laws series in 2023. This series seeks to publish high-quality monographs on new directions in Asian legal studies.Footnote ⁶⁵ The Journal of Japanese Law has been jointly published in Western languages (German, English, and French) by the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law and the German-Japanese Association of Jurists since 1996.Footnote ⁶⁶ The Durham Asian Law Journal, a student-run journal established in 2019 at Durham Law School, publishes articles and papers written by students, academics, and practicing lawyers on current legal issues in Asia.Footnote ⁶⁷

Courses : Some European universities offer regional courses on Asian laws. The SOAS Law School at the University of London offers various courses, including “Legal Systems in Asia and Africa”; “Law and Society in South Asia”; “Law, Religion, and State in South Asia”; and “Law and Society in Southeast Asia.”Footnote ⁶⁸ Stockholm University offers “Law and Society in Asia,” which deals with the concept of law, the rule of law, and legal consciousness through case studies of Myanmar, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, China, and Singapore.Footnote ⁶⁹ The Oxford Faculty of Law offers the subject-based course “Constitutionalism in Asia,” which examines various forms of constitutionalism in the region: liberal (e.g., India, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan); hybrid (e.g., Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Singapore); socialist (e.g., China and Vietnam); military (e.g., Myanmar and Thailand); and tradition/religion-based (Confucian and Buddhist).Footnote ⁷⁰

Jurisdictional courses in Europe tend to focus on Chinese laws. The European China Law Studies Association reports thirty-seven courses on Chinese laws taught throughout Europe.Footnote ⁷¹ The courses range from a general introduction to the Chinese legal system to various substantive aspects of Chinese laws, such as business, property, and human rights. Several UK law schools offer Chinese laws courses, such as “Law and Justice in Contemporary China” (SOAS), “Chinese Law and Institutions” (Queen Mary), “Chinese Business Law” (Queen Mary), and “Chinese Legal System” (Durham). The University of Sheffield School of Law even offers a bachelor’s degree in Chinese law.Footnote ⁷² The topic of Chinese laws is widely taught at universities in continental Europe, including Cologne University, the University of Göttingen, the University of Vienna, the University of Copenhagen, KU Leuven, and the University of Helsinki, among others.Footnote ⁷³ The University of Göttingen offers a master’s degree in Chinese and Comparative Law.Footnote ⁷⁴ Aix-Marseille University offers a master’s degree in Chinese Business Law.Footnote ⁷⁵

E. Asia

Asian laws, as the laws of others, have been less studied in Asia than in Western countries. Japan has engaged in the law and development movement and concomitantly in the study of the laws of other Asian countries since the 1990s. In recent years, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Korea have engaged in the study of the laws of other Asian jurisdictions.

Centers : There are only seven Asian laws centers in Asia, which are concentrated in a few developed Asian jurisdictions—namely, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, and Singapore. Some legal research centers in Asia (such as the University of Hong Kong [HKU], HKU’s Center for Comparative and Public Law, the Chinese University of Hong Kong [CUHK], and CUHK’s Centre for Comparative and Transnational Law) have engaged with Asian laws even though the study of Asian laws is not their primary focus.

Hong Kong has two centers focusing on Chinese laws:

• ▪ The Centre for Chinese and Comparative Law at the School of Law of the City University of Hong Kong (CityUHK School of Law) was established in 1994 and is “one of the world’s oldest research centres on Chinese and comparative legal studies as a discipline.”Footnote ⁷⁶ Members of the center have expertise in the laws of China, Hong Kong, and Singapore. The center seeks to promote Hong Kong as a legal hub for researching Chinese laws and comparative law; provide a forum for academic discussions on the laws of China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Asia in general; and promote the rule of law in Hong Kong, China, and the Asia-Pacific region, among others.Footnote ⁷⁷

• ▪ The Philip K.H. Wong Centre for Chinese Law at the University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law was established in 2009 as the Centre for Chinese Law and was renamed in 2022 in honor of a donation of HK$100 million from the Philip K.H. Wong Foundation.Footnote ⁷⁸ The center seeks to connect “legal communities and civil society sectors in the mainland with the international community to promote free, open dialogue and knowledge exchange.”Footnote ⁷⁹ The center conducts research, organizes events (conferences and seminars), manages an LLM in Chinese Law, and hosts a blog that promotes scholarship on Chinese laws.Footnote ⁸⁰

Japan has two Asian laws centers:

• ▪ The Center for Asian Legal Exchange at Nagoya University was created in 1992 to assist legal reforms in other Asian countries (particularly the former and current socialist countries). The center seeks to coordinate research in Asian laws and the theories of legal assistance, develop human resources for law-making and enforcement in Asian countries, and train Japan’s human resources in Asian laws.Footnote ⁸¹

• ▪ The Waseda Institute for East Asian Legal Studies has operated at Waseda University since 2000. The center collects and arranges historical resources on Taiwan and Korea and conducts research on modern Japanese laws and the influence of Japanese laws on the laws of East Asian countries during the prewar period. The center also seeks to promote research collaboration and develop a research network.Footnote ⁸²

South Korea has one center dedicated to Asian laws. The Asia-Pacific Law Institute at Seoul National University was created in 2012. The institute seeks to promote the comparative analysis of various legal regimes in the Asia-Pacific region and formulate solutions to significant legal issues, among other purposes.Footnote ⁸³ The institute seems to have a strong research interest in Chinese laws. It has also published five books in Korean on various aspects of Chinese laws, such as antimonopoly laws, industrial and commercial registration, and state-owned enterprises.Footnote ⁸⁴ The institute has also published in Korean a book on Japanese constitutional laws, a book on Indonesian laws, and a book comparing Korean and Mongolian laws regarding the responsibilities of a company director.Footnote ⁸⁵

Singapore has two Asian laws centers:

• ▪ The National University of Singapore (NUS) Faculty of Law created the Centre for Asian Legal Studies in 2012, recognizing that “legal developments in Asia are now of critical importance to Singapore and to the entire world.”Footnote ⁸⁶ The founding director of the center is Professor Andrew Harding, a leading scholar in the fields of Asian legal studies and comparative constitutional law.Footnote ⁸⁷ Members of the center have expertise in various aspects of Asian laws, including public, civil, and commercial laws; international law; and law and religion. The center sponsors research projects, conferences, seminars, and training and mentoring sessions.Footnote ⁸⁸

• ▪ The Singapore Management University (SMU) Yong Pung How School of Law created the Centre for Commercial Law in Asia (formerly Centre for Cross-Border Commercial Law in Asia) in 2014 to promote the law school as “the leading centre in Asia for the study of commercial law.”Footnote ⁸⁹ The center conducts and facilitates research in all areas of commercial laws. Its current director is Professor Dan W. Puchniak, an internationally recognized scholar in comparative corporate law and governance in Asia. The center also engages faculty members specializing in various aspects of commercial laws.Footnote ⁹⁰

Associations : The 21st century has witnessed the creation of societies for various aspects of Asian laws, including law and economics, corporate laws, international law, law and society, constitutional laws, legal history, and the legal profession. Asian scholars initiated these societies, which are housed in Asia. This development indicates efforts to consolidate the institutional base of Asian legal studies in Asia.

• ▪ The Asian Law Institute was established in Singapore in 2003 by an association of Asian law schools to promote Asian legal scholarship and to facilitate greater interaction among scholars working in the area of Asian laws. The institute conducts a fellowship program, annual conference, research symposium, and young scholars’ workshop. NUS leads the initiative and provides continual administrative and financial support for the institute.Footnote ⁹¹

• ▪ The Asian Law & Economics Association was established in 2005. Its annual conferences are the association’s major event. The association held its inaugural conference at the Seoul National University School of Law in South Korea. The subsequent annual conferences have been organized in different Asian jurisdictions, including China, Japan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam.Footnote ⁹²

• ▪ The Asian Constitutional Law Forum, held biannually, provides a venue for academic discussion on Asian constitutional laws. The forum was first held at Seoul National University in 2005. Subsequent meetings have been organized in Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, mainland China, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, and Taiwan, respectively.Footnote ⁹³ Based on the forum, the Association for Asian Constitutional Studies was established in 2017.Footnote ⁹⁴

• ▪ The Asian Society of International Law was established in 2007. It held its inaugural conference at NUS. The society seeks to promote research, education, and international law practice in Asia, foster Asian perspectives on international law, and promote awareness of and respect for international law in Asia. To realize these goals, the society organizes conferences, seminars, workshops, and other meetings; endeavors to publish about the field; and collects and disseminates information regarding international law in Asia. The society currently has four chapters—namely, in Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Bangladesh.Footnote ⁹⁵

• ▪ The Asian Law & Society Association was created in 2015, with its executive office housed at Waseda University in Japan. The society seeks “to develop the Asian law and society field into a vibrant and cohesive discipline.”Footnote ⁹⁶ Its annual meeting, conceived as “a timely platform to define the field, advance theory, and cultivate empirical work and new scholarship,” has been held in various jurisdictions, including Australia, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam.Footnote ⁹⁷

• ▪ The Asian Law Schools Association was established in 2020 by twenty-eight Asian law schools to support legal education and scholarship in Asia through collaboration among Asian law schools. The CityUHK School of Law led the initiative, and the NUS Faculty of Law currently hosts its secretariat. The association organizes biennial deans’ forums, research workshops for junior scholars, seminars and conferences on legal education, and comparative law research projects.Footnote ⁹⁸

• ▪ The Asian Legal History Association was created in 2021. The CUHK Faculty of Law led the initiative. The association has supported Asian legal history conferences hosted and organized by the University of Law at Hue University, the Faculty of Law at Thammasat University, the Centre for Asian Legal Studies at NUS, and the Faculty of Law at CUHK.Footnote ⁹⁹

• ▪ The Asian Corporate Law Forum, created in 2023, should also be noted. Although it is not an association per se, it plans to organize annual meetings similar to those of an association. Its founding institutional members include ten Asian law schools.Footnote ¹⁰⁰ The forum aims to become “the preeminent organization in the world for scholarship on corporate law and governance in Asia.”Footnote ¹⁰¹ To realize this goal, the forum will hold an annual conference, with the inaugural conference taking place at the SMU Yong Pung How School of Law in April 2024.Footnote ¹⁰²

Journals : In addition to numerous national journals focusing on domestic laws, Asian law schools and societies have created a wide range of journals dedicated to the study of the Asian laws of others.

Several Asian laws journals are housed at law schools. The Asia Pacific Law Review (APLR), based at the CityUHK School of Law, was created in 1992. This generalist law journal publishes scholarship on the laws of South, Central, East, and Southeast Asia, Australasia, and the Pacific Islands. Other journals are specific, dealing with particular approaches or issues pertaining to Asian laws. The Chinese Journal of Comparative Law has been published by OUP since 2013, with its editorial office currently based in the Centre for Chinese and Comparative Law of the CityUHK School of Law. OUP has published the Chinese Journal of International Law since 2013 in association with the Chinese Society of International Law and the Institute of International Law of China Foreign Affairs University. Published by Brill since 2000, the Asia-Pacific Journal on Human Rights and the Law is housed at the HKU Faculty of Law and contains scholarship focusing on issues of law and human rights in the Asia-Pacific region.

Some specialized journals on Asian laws are published or supported by associations. Published by De Gruyter from 2006 to 2015 and by CUP since 2015, the Asian Journal of Comparative Law, an initiative of the Asian Law Institute, publishes comparative scholarship on Asian legal systems. The Asian Journal of Law and Economics, the official publication of the Asian Law & Economics Association, has been published by De Gruyter since 2010. The Asian Journal of International Law, the official publication of the Asian Society of International Law, has been published by CUP since 2011. The Asian Journal of Law and Society, supported by the Asian Law and Society Association, has been published by CUP since 2014.

Courses : Asian law schools, of course, offer classes on the laws of their own jurisdictions. However, some international law schools in Asia offer comparative and foreign Asian laws courses in English. NUS offers the most comparative and foreign Asian laws courses, including a region-based course, “Legal Systems in Asia”; jurisdiction-based courses, “Chinese Commercial Law,” “Chinese Corporate and Securities Law,” and “Indonesian Law”; and subject-based courses, “Confucianism and Law,” “Law and Democracy in East Asia,” “Human Rights in Asia,” “Strategies for Asian Disputes - A Comparative Analysis,” “China, India and International Law,” “ASEAN Economic Community Law and Policy,” “Private Law in East Asia,” “Trusts Law in the Asia-Pacific Region,” and “Transitional Justice in Asia.” Comparative and foreign Asian laws courses have also been offered in other Asian law schools, such as “Law in Transnational East Asia” (University of Tokyo), “Human Rights and Constitutionalism in Asia” (HKU), “Foreign Investment Law in Asia” (SMU), and “Japanese Labor and Employment Law” (National Taiwan University, College of Law).

F. Africa

China has increasingly expanded its investment and “legal cooperation” in Africa.Footnote ¹⁰³ This has spawned an interest in Chinese laws at some African universities and within the African legal community. To illustrate, in 2015, twenty-three legal professionals (including lawyers, consultants, government researchers, judges, and prosecutors) from fourteen African countries “came to Beijing for a month-long legal exchange program,” which involved studying the Chinese legal system.Footnote ¹⁰⁴

The University of Cape Town Faculty of Law offers a master’s-level course on “Chinese Law and Investment in Africa.”Footnote ¹⁰⁵ The course includes ten lectures that seek to “assist lawyers and other professionals to navigate China’s emerging role in the global economy, with a specific focus on China’s investments in Africa.”Footnote ¹⁰⁶ The lectures deal with Africa-China relations; China’s Belt and Road Initiative and Africa and lending practices; Chinese investments in Africa; labor and environmental issues; digital authoritarianism; China’s policing and military investments in Africa; US-China tension and its impact on Africa; the development of Chinese laws; Chinese economic laws; Chinese contract laws; and China-Africa legal cooperation.Footnote ¹⁰⁷ One of the course’s instructors is Tebogo Lefifi, an African doctoral researcher specializing in Chinese laws and African investments.Footnote ¹⁰⁸

A. Generic Works on Asian Laws

A body of generic works provides comprehensive introductions and materials on Asian laws. They may be regional or jurisdictional. The regional works highlight the laws of Asia as a whole, while the jurisdictional introduce the legal systems of individual Asian countries (but mainly focus on large or developed Asian countries, such as China, Japan, and Indonesia).

Regional generic works collect and produce holistic materials about Asian laws. An early example is Selected Writings on Asian Law, edited by Chin Kim, Professor of International, Comparative, and Asian Law at the California Western School of Law, which includes a useful collection of essays (mainly published in US law journals) on Asian laws published between 1969 and 1982.Footnote ¹⁰⁹

The 1997 book Asian Laws through Australian Eyes, edited by Veronica Taylor, explores Asian legal systems vis-à-vis the rule of law.Footnote ¹¹⁰ The book includes twenty chapters by Australian and New Zealand academics, which explore conceptual and systematic issues and various substantive topics of Asian laws, including constitutionalism, public law and order, media freedom, civil law, and business regulation.

Another generic work on Asian legal systems was published in 2011, edited by two senior experts on comparative law and Asian laws: Gary F. Bell at the NUS Faculty of Law and E. Ann Black at the University of Queensland T.C. Beirne School of Law. This book is a collection of essays on the legal systems of eleven Asian jurisdictions.Footnote ¹¹¹

More recently, the 2017 Routledge Handbook of Asian Law, edited by Australian scholar Christoph Antons, serves as a comprehensive resource on Asian laws. The book covers issues as diverse as family laws and Islamic courts; decentralization and the revival of traditional forms of law; and discourses on the rule of law, human rights, corporate governance, and environmental protection. The volume is divided into five parts: Asia in Law and the Humanities and Social Sciences; the Political Economy of Law in Asia; Asian Traditions and their Transformations; Law, the Environment, and Access to Land and Natural Resources; and People in Asia and their Rights.Footnote ¹¹²

Also in 2017, Gary F. Bell edited a generic book on Asian laws in honor of M.B. (Barry) Hooker, a prominent New Zealand scholar who taught at various institutions in Singapore, the UK, and Australia.Footnote ¹¹³ Given the broader scope of Hooker’s scholarship,Footnote ¹¹⁴ the festschrift includes essays on various aspects of Asian laws, including legal theory, legal anthropology, comparative law, law and religion, constitutional law, and Islamic law. In 2020, Janos Jany, a legal scholar at Pázmány University in Hungary, authored a book on various legal traditions in Asia.Footnote ¹¹⁵

In addition to generic works covering Asian laws, some publications focus on the laws of particular Asian jurisdictions, mainly large and developed countries. These books cover civil law jurisdictions (Japan and Indonesia), a socialist law jurisdiction (China), and several common law jurisdictions (Singapore, Malaysia, and Hong Kong). Three American scholars, Curtis J. Milhaupt, J. Mark Ramseyer, and Michael K. Young, published a textbook on Japanese laws, which includes 130 selected readings that cover various aspects of Japanese laws, such as the civil law tradition, the legal services industry, dispute resolution, contracts, torts, economic regulations, and constitutional, criminal, family, employment, and corporate laws.Footnote ¹¹⁶ The UK-based Japanese scholar Hiroshi Oda published an introductory book on Japanese laws.Footnote ¹¹⁷ Australian scholars Tim Lindsey and Simon Butt co-authored an introductory book on Indonesian laws.Footnote ¹¹⁸ There are also several generic works on Chinese laws, including books by Professor Albert Chen at HKUFootnote ¹¹⁹ and Jianfu Chen at La Trobe University.Footnote ¹²⁰ Other generic jurisdictional works introduce the legal systems of the common law jurisdictions in Asia, such as Singapore,Footnote ¹²¹ Malaysia,Footnote ¹²² and Hong Kong.Footnote ¹²³

B. Asian Jurisprudence

Jurisprudence deals with “general theoretical questions about the nature of laws and legal systems, about the relationship of law to justice and morality and about the social nature of law.”Footnote ¹²⁴ Asian jurisprudence has not yet emerged as a field; there is no dedicated society and/or journal on Asian jurisprudence. However, a nascent body of scholarship explores jurisprudential questions about Asian laws. The existing literature on Asian jurisprudence has developed in three directions: legal philosophy, comparative jurisprudence, and normative jurisprudence.

First, some works explore legal conceptions in ancient and modern Asian philosophy. For example, Chongko Choi, a leading Korean legal scholar, explores ancient East Asian jurisprudence derived from classical Chinese philosophies, including Confucianism, Legalism, and Taoism.Footnote ¹²⁵ In the same vein, Wejen Chang, a leading Taiwanese scholar, considers the legal philosophy of the most prominent Chinese classical philosophers—those being Confucius, Laozi, Mozi, Zhuangzi, Mencius, Xunzi, Lord Shang, and Han Fei.Footnote ¹²⁶ The study of East Asian jurisprudence also involves investigating the legal thoughts of modern thinkers in East Asia (particularly in China, Japan, and Korea).Footnote ¹²⁷ Apart from East Asian jurisprudence, other works explore legal ideas in other traditions of Asian philosophy, including scholarship on IslamicFootnote ¹²⁸ and Buddhist jurisprudence.Footnote ¹²⁹

The second direction echoes comparative jurisprudence, which explores the embodiment of philosophical ideas and principles in legal systems.Footnote ¹³⁰ Works on Asian comparative jurisprudence investigate ancient and modern philosophical underpinnings of ancient and modern Asian legal systems. For example, Norman Ho, a scholar at the Peking University School of Transnational Law, delves into the influence of Confucian jurisprudence on dynastic legal judgments in China.Footnote ¹³¹ Turning to modern practices, a group of Korean scholars examines the reception of Western legal philosophy in Korea and its role in the social context.Footnote ¹³²

The third direction in Asian jurisprudence is normative. This involves the contemporary normative reconstruction of ancient Asian legal and political concepts. Chongko Choi, for example, advocates the contemporary reconstruction of East Asian jurisprudence, which requires rethinking the conceptions of law, justice, goodness, legal aesthetics, legal ideology, human rights, and responsibility.Footnote ¹³³ Norman Ho draws on the teachings of Confucius and Mencius to provide Confucian normative justifications for private property.Footnote ¹³⁴

The literature on legal conceptions in Asian philosophies, the incarnation of Asian and Western legal philosophy in Asian laws, and normative legal theories rooted in Asian intellectual sources may be formative to the future emergence of the field of Asian jurisprudence.

C. Asian Legal History

Asian legal history scholarship explores the evolution of laws and legal institutions in Asia. A rich body of scholarship on legal history in Asia has been produced by both legal scholars and historians with an interest in law. Works on Asian legal history can be grouped into the seven categories below:

General Legal History: This genre encompasses general introductions and materials on a subregion or national jurisdiction in Asia. The prominent New Zealand scholar M.B. Hooker, who taught at various institutions in Singapore, the UK, and Australia, has contributed enormously to various areas of scholarship on Southeast Asian laws, including legal history. A Concise Legal History of South-East Asia, a book Hooker published in 1978, explores oriental laws (Indian, Islamic, and Chinese) and occidental laws (English, French, Dutch, Spanish, and American) in Burma, Siam, Indochina, Malaya, the East Indies, and the Philippines.Footnote ¹³⁵ In addition, his two edited volumes, The Laws of South-East Asia, published in 1986 and 1988, respectively, provide rich materials on the development of pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial laws in Southeast Asia.Footnote ¹³⁶ Other general works deal with the legal history of individual Asian jurisdictions: a 2005 handbook introduced Japanese legal history;Footnote ¹³⁷ Marie Seong-Hak Kim, a Korean legal historian, published an edited collection in 2016 on Korea’s legal history, from the Chosŏn to colonial and modern periods;Footnote ¹³⁸ Xiaoqun Xu, a historian at Christopher Newport University, authored a book in 2020 that offers a comprehensive history of Chinese laws and justice from the imperial era to the post-Mao period;Footnote ¹³⁹ Professor Andrew Harding and Dr. Munin Pongsapan, former dean of the Thammasat University Faculty of Law, published an edited volume on Thai legal history in 2021.Footnote ¹⁴⁰

History of Customary Law: The second group of scholarship deals with the history of customary law in Asia. For example, Henderson explored village law during the Tokugawa period in Japan;Footnote ¹⁴¹ Marie Seong-Hak Kim examined Korean customary law in a 2012 work;Footnote ¹⁴² Hooker studied adat law (customary law) in modern Indonesia;Footnote ¹⁴³ and Mahabat Sadyrbek published a historical and anthropological study in 2018 on customary legal practices in Central Asia (particularly Kyrgyzstan).Footnote ¹⁴⁴

History of Religious Law: Asia is home to the world’s major religions (Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism) and legal systems based on these religions. Scholars study the evolution of the religious legal systems longitudinally. For example, Hooker explored the history of Islamic laws in Southeast Asia;Footnote ¹⁴⁵ Elizabeth Lhost, a historian of law and religion in South Asia, published a monograph in 2022 on the history of Islamic laws in modern South Asia;Footnote ¹⁴⁶ SOAS’s Andrew Huxley, a legal historian of Burma and Southeast Asia, explored the history of Buddhist laws in Thailand, Laos, and Burma;Footnote ¹⁴⁷ and scholars at the University of Texas at Austin, Patrick Olivelle and Donald R. Davis, edited a comprehensive collection of essays in 2018 on the history of Hindu laws.Footnote ¹⁴⁸

History of Dynastic Law: The fourth category examines the dynastic laws in Asia, particularly East Asia. Pre-modern dynastic governments in East Asia (namely, China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam) enacted many legal codes and constructed the dynasties’ legal institutions, which were largely informed by Confucianism. A rich body of scholarship explored the history of these dynastic legal codes and institutions. Many works deal with Chinese dynastic laws. For example, Harvard’s East Asian Legal Studies Program published two books on the Qing Code and the Qing’s bureaucracy;Footnote ¹⁴⁹ Princeton University Press’s Studies in East Asian Law published a series of books on Chinese legal history, including a collection of essays on the Chinese legal tradition (particularly, the laws of the Zhou, Sung, and Qing dynasties) and its influence on dynastic laws in Japan and Korea,Footnote ¹⁵⁰ and a book on the legal system of the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368) and its legal code;Footnote ¹⁵¹ the University of Washington Press’s series in Asian laws published translations of the Ming Code and other books on criminal laws in imperial China;Footnote ¹⁵² and more recently, Taisu Zhang authored a book in 2019 on kinship and property in preindustrial China (and England) and another monograph in 2023 on the belief systems underpinning Qing taxation.Footnote ¹⁵³

Other works explore dynastic laws in Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. For example, Henderson authored two volumes in 1965 on the conciliatory practices during the Tokugawa period in Japan;Footnote ¹⁵⁴ a 1981 research monograph of the Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, explored various aspects of laws in force during Korea’s Chosŏn dynasty, including the influence of Confucianism on law and legal thought, law-making, the judicial system, and law and the village society;Footnote ¹⁵⁵ the English-language translation of the Confucian-influenced legal code of Vietnam’s Le Dynasty (1428–1788) was published in 1987 with the support of Harvard Law School;Footnote ¹⁵⁶ Korean scholar Yu In-son Yu, in a book published in 1990, explored the history of family and law during the Restored Le dynasty (1428–1789) in Vietnam;Footnote ¹⁵⁷ and a 1988 research monograph by the University of California’s Institute of East Asian Studies employed the framework of international human rights law to explore the protection of human rights in Vietnamese dynastic laws.Footnote ¹⁵⁸

History of Colonial Laws: The fifth category considers colonial laws in Asia. Most Asian countries were colonized, and law and legal institutions were inherently tools of colonialism. Historical accounts of colonial laws in Asia include a 2020 book on colonial legal infrastructure in Southeast Asia by Nurfadzilah Yahaya, a Southeast Asia historian at Yale;Footnote ¹⁵⁹ a book published in 2022 by Michael Ng, a legal historian at the HKU Faculty of Law, which explores political censorship in British Hong Kong;Footnote ¹⁶⁰ and a book published in 2014 by Mitra Sharafi, a legal historian of modern South Asia at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School, which examines the legal culture of the Parsis or Zoroastrians of British India.Footnote ¹⁶¹

History of the Laws of Non-Colonized Countries and the Modern Development of the Laws of Former Colonies: Some works explore the history of the laws of non-colonized countries (Japan, China, and Thailand) and the post-colonial laws of former colonies. For example, Michael Ng published a monograph in 2014 on legal transplants in early 20th-century China,Footnote ¹⁶² and Jason Buhi, a legal scholar at Barry University’s Dwayne O. Andreas School of Law, published a monograph in 2021 on Macau’s constitutional history.Footnote ¹⁶³ In the same year, Eugenie Mérieau, a French scholar of public law at the Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University, published a monograph on the monarchy and constitutional history in Thailand;Footnote ¹⁶⁴ and Rohit De, a legal historian at Yale who specializes in the legal history of modern South Asia, authored a book in 2018 exploring the role of individuals on the margins of society in shaping Indian constitutional culture.Footnote ¹⁶⁵

History of Transnational Law: Works on the history of transnational law explores transnational encounters in the evolution of Asian laws and the reception of international law in Asia. Some works explore Western encounters with Chinese laws. For example, in a 2013 book, Teemu Ruskola, an interdisciplinary legal scholar at the University of Pennsylvania’s Carey Law School, investigated the history of “legal Orientalism,” or Chinese laws in the Western imagination;Footnote ¹⁶⁶ in a monograph published in 2016, Li Chen, a legal historian at the University of Toronto, explored the imperial imagination of Chinese laws;Footnote ¹⁶⁷ Ryan Mitchell, an expert on international law and Chinese laws and legal history at CUHK, published a 2022 monograph on the history of Western-imposed legal structures in China and Chinese officials, jurists, and citizens’ engagements with international law;Footnote ¹⁶⁸ and Priyasha Saksena, a legal historian at the University of Leeds, authored a book in 2023 on the history of the international law concept of sovereignty in the princely States of colonial South Asia.Footnote ¹⁶⁹

Asian Comparative Law

The field of Asian laws is often integrated into the general discipline of comparative law.Footnote ¹⁷⁰ However, Asian comparative law has emerged as a specific field with its own institutions and a substantive body of scholarship. The Asian Law Institute is largely an Asian association of comparative law. A dedicated journal to Asian comparative law has existed for decades. Specific scholarship on Asian comparative law is well-developed. Two prominent lines of the comparative study of Asian laws have emerged: comparative legal traditions and the comparative study of substantive areas of Asian laws.

Comparative Legal Traditions: A rich body of comparative scholarship explores Asian legal traditions, which is an intersection between comparative law and legal history.Footnote ¹⁷¹ The difference, however, is that historical work traces the evolution of the legal traditions, while the comparative literature focuses on the legal traditions’ institutions and substantive principles. Some works in Asian comparative law examine pre-modern legal traditions in Asia, including Confucian law,Footnote ¹⁷² Islamic law,Footnote ¹⁷³ Hindu law,Footnote ¹⁷⁴ and Buddhist law.Footnote ¹⁷⁵ Other works deal with Western legal traditions in modern Asia, including common law,Footnote ¹⁷⁶ civil law,Footnote ¹⁷⁷ and socialist law.Footnote ¹⁷⁸

Substantive Comparative Law: An extensive body of literature in Asian comparative law explores various areas of substantive law. A rich body of Asian comparative constitutional law has been developed. Some work introduces general themes of comparative constitutional law in Asia.Footnote ¹⁷⁹ Other specific literature explores various forms (e.g., liberal, socialist, hybrid, military, Islamic, Buddhist, and Confucian) of constitutionalism in the region.Footnote ¹⁸⁰ Other works explore issues of constitutional design, such as constitution-making and constitutional amendments.Footnote ¹⁸¹ Some works examine structural issues, such as courts and parliaments.Footnote ¹⁸² Other scholarship deals with constitutional rights.Footnote ¹⁸³ Scholarship in other areas of Asian comparative public law includes comparative administrative lawFootnote ¹⁸⁴ and comparative criminal law.Footnote ¹⁸⁵

Another body of comparative scholarship explores various aspects of laws pertaining to private rights and the market in Asia. A significant body of scholarship on comparative contract law in Asia has been produced. To illustrate, Professor Mindy Chen-Wishart is leading a six-book project on contract laws in fourteen Asian jurisdictions, four of which have been published—those analyzing remedies for breach of contract,Footnote ¹⁸⁶ contract formation and third-party beneficiaries,Footnote ¹⁸⁷ the contents of contracts and unfair terms,Footnote ¹⁸⁸ and a contract’s invalidity.Footnote ¹⁸⁹ Also, a sophisticated literature on comparative corporate law in Asia has been developed, which includes works on independent directors,Footnote ¹⁹⁰ derivative actions,Footnote ¹⁹¹ shareholders’ fiduciary duties,Footnote ¹⁹² sustainability and corporate mechanisms,Footnote ¹⁹³ and social enterprises.Footnote ¹⁹⁴ The market-related scholarship includes works in other substantive areas, such as financial laws,Footnote ¹⁹⁵ competition laws,Footnote ¹⁹⁶ and intellectual property laws.Footnote ¹⁹⁷

D. Asian Laws and Society

Asian laws and society scholarship focuses on Asian laws and legal institutions as social phenomena.Footnote ¹⁹⁸ In addition to the solid institutionalization of an association and a journal, the field has produced a sophisticated body of scholarship. The recent book The Asian Law and Society Reader provides a useful explanation of the field’s nature, evolution, features, and major themes.Footnote ¹⁹⁹ The book’s content includes the topics of religion, legal pluralism, dispute resolution, legal consciousness, legal mobilization, the legal profession, courts, and crime and justice.Footnote ²⁰⁰ These subjects may overlap with those of comparative law, but law and society scholars employ distinctive theories and methodologies that differentiate the topic from comparative law.

E. Asian Laws and Economics

The field of Asian laws and economics involves the economic analysis of various aspects of public and private laws in Asia. Together with the institutional underpinnings of an association and a journal, a rich body of scholarship on Asian laws and economics has been produced. The literature reflects two major trends: constitutional economics and the legal origin thesis in law and finance. Some scholars employ methods of constitutional economics to analyze constitutional issues in Asia. To illustrate, Eric C. Ip draws on constitutional economics to explain issues involving public laws in Hong Kong.Footnote ²⁰¹ His recent book articulates a transaction cost theory to explain the divergence of constitutional review in Hong Kong and Macau.Footnote ²⁰²

The second trend in Asian laws and economics engages (usually critically) with the legal origin thesis in law and finance literature, which posits that law matters for financial development and that the common law provides better legal protections for financial development than civil law.Footnote ²⁰³ Scholars point out that China provides a counterexample for this thesis: “In spite of relatively poorer applicable legal protection and standard financing channels, the Private Sector has been growing much faster than the others and has been contributing to most of the economy’s growth.”Footnote ²⁰⁴

The literature in the area of Asian laws and economics examines various aspects of private laws (such as contract, tort, property, and corporate laws).Footnote ²⁰⁵ Again, these issues overlap with the general field of comparative law, but law and economics scholars employ tools of economics to analyze various issues, which renders Asian laws and economics a distinctive kind of scholarship.

F. International Law in Asia

International law in Asia scholarship examines the practices of Asian jurisdictions concerning international law. Apart from the institutionalization of an association and journal, there is a significant body of scholarship on international law in Asia. For example, the recent Oxford Handbook of International Law in Asia and the Pacific presents studies on two major themes in the field:Footnote ²⁰⁶ generic and jurisdictional. The generic themes include the historical development of Asia’s engagement with international law, regional organizations (e.g., ASEAN), regional peace and security, human rights, international humanitarian law, international criminal law, international environmental law, the law of the sea, international economic law, and dispute settlement.Footnote ²⁰⁷ The jurisdictional themes involve the contributions of individual Asian States to the development of international law.Footnote ²⁰⁸

A. Development Patterns of Asian Laws

The diverse institutions and fields of Asian laws follow a few common patterns, characterized here as formation, transition, and transformation.

B. Why Study Asian Laws?

The global development of Asian legal studies is driven by two major factors: the deontological pursuit of knowledge about Asian laws and the instrumental necessity of understanding Asian laws.

System of Asian Laws

As a consequence of six decades of development, the field of Asian laws has emerged as a complex system of legal knowledge. This intellectual system includes numerous strands of inquiry into Asian legal theory, legal history, comparative law, law and society, law and economics, and international law. The system of Asian laws presents two competing trends: integration and differentiation, which are both described below.