Legal Innovations in Asia


Book Description

Expert scholars from around the world offer a history of law in the region while also providing a wider context for present-day Asian law. The contributors share insightful perspectives on comparative law, the role of courts, legal transplants, intelle




Law and Legal Institutions of Asia


Book Description

The study of Asia and its plural legal systems is of increasing significance, both within and outside Asia. Lawyers, whether in Australia, America or Europe, or working within an Asian jurisdiction, require a sound knowledge of how the law operates across this fast-growing and diverse region. Law and Legal Institutions of Asia is the first book to offer a comprehensive assessment of eleven key jurisdictions in Asia - China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei Darussalam, Singapore and the Philippines. Written by academics and practitioners with particular expertise in their state or territory, each chapter uses a breakthrough approach, facilitating cross-jurisdictional comparisons and giving essential insights into how law functions in different ways across the region and in each of the individual jurisdictions.




Legal Innovations in Asia


Book Description

Legal Innovations in Asia explores how law in Asia has developed over time as a result of judicial interpretation and innovations drawn from the legal systems of foreign countries. Expert scholars from around the world offer a history of law in the region while also providing a wider context for present-day Asian law. The contributors share insightful perspectives on comparative law, the role of courts, legal transplants, intellectual property, Islamic law and other issues as they relate to the practice and study of law in Japan, China, Taiwan, Korea and Southeast Asia.




Legal Education in Asia


Book Description

Legal education systems, like legal systems themselves, were framed across Asia without exception according to foreign models. These reflect the vestiges of colonialism, and can be said to amount to imitating the style and purposes of legal education typical in Western and relatively "pure" common law and civilian systems. Today, however, we see Asian legal education coming into its own and beginning to accept responsibility for designing curricula and approaches that fit the region’s particular needs. This book explores how conventional "transplanted" approaches as regards program design as well as modes of teaching are, or are on the cusp of being, reimagined and discerns emerging home-grown traces of innovation replacing imitation in countries and universities across East Asia.




Legal Pluralism and Governance in South Asia and Diasporas


Book Description

Legal Pluralism and Governance in South Asia and the Diasporas contributes to the already heated debate about legal pluralism and the ontology of law by shifting the attention toward the relationship between what is treated as law and its impact on governance at the fora of dispute resolution. This book addresses sensitive issues such as gender rights and alternative dispute resolution in India, Hindu and Muslim personal laws in South Asia and in Europe, cross-border white violence, the change to Islamic legal traditions under Western domination, women’s inheritance in Pakistan and in the disputed territory of Gilgit Baltistan, indigenous rights and resistance at the India-Bangladesh border, and customary laws of nomadic groups in India. The authors deploy a variety of views that point at the pros and cons of legal pluralism and also integrates its opponents. They show how constructions of identity, religion, and power have historically informed the conceptualisation of secularism which may be an ideal, sometimes able to provide for perceptions of accountable governance, but also generating dividing worldviews. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Legal Pluralism and Official Law.




Legal Traditions in Asia


Book Description

This book offers a comparative analysis of traditional Asian legal systems. It combines methods from legal history, legal anthropology, legal philosophy, and substantive law, pursuing a comprehensive approach that offers readers a broad perspective on the topic. The geographic regions covered include the Near East, Middle East, Central Asia, India, China, Japan, and Southeast Asia. For each region, the book first provides historical and political context. Next, it discusses major milestones in the region’s legal history and political institutions, as well as its forms of government. Readers are then presented with fundamental principles and terms needed to understand the legal arguments discussed. The book begins with the Ancient Near East and important topics such as Jewish law. The next part considers Islamic law, while also exploring modern issues. The third part focuses on Hindu and Buddhist law, while the fourth part covers China and Japan. The book’s closing section examines tribal societies, e.g. Mongols, Pashtuns and Malays. Topics covered include the interaction of legal systems within a legal circle, inter-systemic interactions, reasons for the failure and success of legal modernization, legal pluralism, and its effects on Asian societies. Family law, law of obligation, criminal law, and procedural law are also explored.




Legal Thoughts between the East and the West in the Multilevel Legal Order


Book Description

This book focuses on the interaction and mutual influences between the East and the West in terms of their legal systems and practices. In this regard, it highlights Professor Herbert H.P. Ma’s achievements and his efforts to bring Eastern and Western legal concepts and systems closer together. The book shows that, while there have been convergences between different legal regimes in many fields of law, diverse legal practices and approaches rooted in differing cultural, social, political and philosophical backgrounds do remain, and that these differences are not necessarily negative elements in the contemporary legal order. By examining different levels of the legal order, including domestic, regional and multilateral, it goes on to argue that identifying these diversities and addressing the interactions and mutual influences between different regimes is a worthwhile undertaking, not only in terms of mutual enrichment, but also with regard to intensifying the degree of desirable coordination between different legal systems. All chapters were written by leading experts, practitioners and scholars from different jurisdictions with expertise in various fields of law and different levels of the legal order, and discuss a number of issues with particular focus on either “one-way” or mutual influences between the Eastern and the Western legal systems, practices and philosophies.




Convergence and Divergence of Private Law in Asia


Book Description

There have been an increasing need for greater integration of many Asian economies, either within the confines of ASEAN or on a more geo-economically strategic scale including major Asian jurisdictions like China, Japan, and Korea. A number of key personalities within the regional legal fraternity have advanced views that such integration ought to occur through the harmonization of legal rules, arguing that in doing so, uncertainty and other transaction costs would be reduced and commercial confidence within the region concomitantly increased. This edited volume brings together eminent and promising scholars and practitioners to investigate what convergence and divergence means in their respective fields and for Asia. Interwoven in the details of each tale of convergence is whether and how convergence ought to take place, and in so choosing, what are the attendant consequences for that choice.




Legal Design


Book Description

This innovative book proposes new theories on how the legal system can be made more comprehensible, usable and empowering for people through the use of design principles. Utilising key case studies and providing real-world examples of legal innovation, the book moves beyond discussion to action. It offers a rich set of examples, demonstrating how various design methods, including information, service, product and policy design, can be leveraged within research and practice.




The World Bank Legal Review


Book Description

This book focuses on the legal challenges and opportunities for International Financial Institutions in the post-crisis world. It includes contributions from academics, practitioners and Bank staff. The contributions cover a broad array of issues, included governance reform and constitutional framework of IFIs, privileges and immunities, responsibility of international organizations, issues related to fragile and conflict-affected states, climate finance, and the recent financial crisis. The book is organized in three main areas, namely (i) Law of International Organizations: Issues Confronting IFIs; (ii) Legal Obligations and Institutions of Developing Countries: Rethinking Approaches of IFIs; and (iii) International Finance and the Challenges of Regulatory Governance.