Asian Law Center
Countries in Focus - Taiwan
The Asian Law Center’s links with Taiwan are long-standing and important. Since our first Ph.D. graduate from Taiwan more than three decades ago, UW has produced a steady stream of talented Taiwanese PhDs who have taken up key roles in shaping law, legal education and social policy in Taiwan.
Prof. Haley (Asian Law Center Director, 1974-2000) Honored
The Asian Law Center congratulates Prof. John O. Haley (Center Director 1974-2000), on being awarded The Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon from the Emperor of Japan for his contribution to the discipline of Japanese law and education to Japanese legal professionals and academics. 2012 is Asian Law Center’s bicentennial anniversary and we plan to hold a seminar in honor of Prof. Haley this fall at the UW law school.
East Asian Law Library Featured in FCIL Publication
Neel Kant Agrawal, a lawyer with the UW Law Librarianship Program, has published a feature article on the East Asian Law Department (EALD) of the Marian Gould Gallagher Law Library. The article reviews the rich history and the circumstances that led to the development of EALD, which is well known and highly regarded for its wide-ranging collection of legal materials on China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan. The EALD supports the Law School’s long-standing research interest amongst faculty, students and staff in the legal systems of East Asia, as well as supports the needs and interests of patrons from the UW community, Seattle, Washington state, regional, national, and even international constituencies seeking information about the legal systems of East Asia.
"The rich history of EALD," writes Neel, "is a clear illustration of how law libraries have adopted to the globalization of the law and legal education." As research on East Asia continues to expand, EALD is uniquely positioned to advance critical discourse and foster long-lasting relations between key legal scholars in the U.S. and East Asia.
Dean Testy and Faculty Return from a Successful Visit to Tokyo, Seoul, and Taipei
Dean Kellye Testy, Director of the Asian Law Center Professor Jon Eddy, and Professors Yong-Sung (Jonathan) Kang and Clark Lombardi recently returned from a very successful trip to Asia – Tokyo, Seoul and Taipei. In addition to connecting with alumni and friends, Dean Testy and our faculty joined colleagues from our partner schools for the Second East Asian Law and Society Conference and visited top law firms in Korea and National Taiwan University.
Dean Testy observed that "the Law School's engagement with Asia is critical for our future, and this trip was a “home run” on all counts: alumni and donor engagement, academic partnerships, jobs and other opportunities for our students, and scholarly opportunities for our faculty."
Shin-Rou Lin's Ph.D. Work Nominated for the 2010 Graduate School Distinguished Dissertation Award
Congratulations to Shin-Rou Lin (LL.M. ‘03; Ph.D. ‘10) on completing the Asian and Compartive Law Ph.D. Program. Shin-Rou's dissertation, entitled 'An Expensive Illusion? The Use of Isolation as a Tuberculosis Control Strategy in Taiwan,' has been nominated by the Law School for the 2010 Graduate School Distinguished Dissertation Award.
An alumna of the LL.M. Program in Asian & Comparative Law, Dr. Lin previously worked as attorney at law with Lexpert Law Firm in Taipei, then as project coordinator on ELSI research of Genomic Medicine. She has published articles on informed consent, the physician’s duty of confidentiality and vaccination policy in Taiwan, as well as served as adjunct lecturer on health care laws and regulations at Chang Gung University in Taiwan.
Congratulations to Professor Tay-sheng Wang (LL.M. '90, Ph.D. '92) on the Publication of His New Book
The Asian Law center congratulates Professor Tay-sheng Wang (LL.M. '90, Ph.D. '92) on the publication of his new book entitled "Kua jie de ri zhi fa yuan dang an yan jiu / 跨界的日治法院檔案研究 / 王泰升 主編 ; 王泰升". The book, written in Chinese, Japanese and English, offers interdisciplinary studies on the Taiwan Colonial Court records archives.
Supporting the Next Generation of Legal Scholars in Taiwan
Since our first Ph.D. graduate from Taiwan more than three decades ago (David M. Huang, Ph.D. ‘75), rising stars in Taiwanese law continue to engage in important research and pursue their doctoral degrees with the Asian Law Center. We acknowledge with thanks the supportive role played by Associate Dean Tay-sheng Wang (LL.M. 1990, Ph.D. 1992) at National Taiwan University in identifying and encouraging young scholars of promise.
Among our current Ph.D. cohort, four candidates are from Taiwan. Judge Tao-Chou (Paul) Chang examines the politics and performance of Taiwan’s Intellectual Property Court; Chuan-ju (Ariel) Cheng is writing about the contemporary indigenous self-government movement in Taiwan and possible legal models for its success; Shin-Rou Lin is conducting empirical research on the Taiwanese government’s public health policy in relation to infectious disease and forced hospitalization; and Hsin-Yang Wu focuses on official language legislation in modern states from a human rights perspective, especially with regard to language rights and equal protection of minorities, indigenous peoples, and immigrants.
Indigenous Legal Scholar Graduates with Ph.D.
Dr. Chih-Wei Tsai (Awi Mona) (Ph.D. '07), a member of the Sediq (Atayal) tribe of Taiwan, worked as a Legislative Assistant at the Legislative Yuan from 1999 to 2001, and played a pivotal role in the advancement of Aboriginal legislation in Taiwan. His research focused on international human rights and organizations and indigenous peoples' rights in Taiwan. We congratulate Dr. Tsai (Awi Mona) for successful defense of his dissertation: 'Principles of Aboriginal Title and Self-Determination: Legal Justification for Indigenous Self-Government in Taiwan.' Following completion of his Ph.D., he was appointed as Assistant Professor at the National Taitung University, Graduate Institute of Austronesian Studies.
Center Co-sponsors the 14th Annual Conference of the North American Taiwan Studies Association
The 14th annual conference of the North American Taiwan Studies Association took place at the University of Washington, Seattle from June 27 to 29 of 2008, with the support of the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange, the Asian Law Center and the East Asia Center at the University of Washington. The conference titled “Translating the Political, Re-envisioning the Social: What’s the Next Turn for Taiwan?” invited scholars and students to reexamine the latest development of democratic politics and social empowerment in Taiwan. Participants included scholars from the United States, Canada, Taiwan, Japan and Europe as well as several faculty members and researchers specialized in Asian Studies from the greater Seattle area.
Collaboration with Judicial Yuan to Enhance Established Scholarly Exchanges with Taiwanese Legal Professionals
The Law School and the Asian Law Center hosts a number of Taiwanese Judges, prosecutors, government officials and attorneys as Visiting Scholars each year. Our recently executed collaborative agreement with the Judicial Yuan of Taiwan (May 2008) will enhance our existing scholarly exchanges.
We also collaborate with the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Seattle to host many visitors from Taiwan. Recent distinguished visitors included Mr. Rih-Sheng Tsai, Deputy-Director of Administrative Enforcement Agency and Mr. Ying-hung Chou, Director of the Taichung Branch, Administrative Enforcement Agency (June 2007), himself an alumnus of the LL.M in Asian and Comparative Law Program (2000).
UWLS — NTU Partnership Strengthened
During their October 2006 visit to Taiwan, our former Dean, WH (‘Joe’) Knight and faculty enjoyed an extended visit to National Taiwan University Law Faculty. There, Dean Ming-cheng Tsai (a former UW Visiting Scholar) and Associate Dean Tay-sheng Wang (LL.M. 1990, Ph.D. 1992) extended a warm welcome. The conversation was wide-ranging, and included developing the outline for a new collaborative agreement between the two schools.
We executed a formal collaborative agreement in July 2007, and have since been exchanging students engaged in comparative legal studies. In the 2008-09 academic year we also welcomed Professor Jau-Yuan Huang, who is working with Professor Dongsheng Zang to examine comparative constitutionalism and international human rights in East Asia.
We had the pleasure of seeing Dean Tsai, Associate Dean Wang, and Professors Jau-yuan Hwang and Wen-chen Chang again, when they made a reciprocal visit to Seattle in September 2007. Their visit allowed us to continue developing areas of joint research and teaching that are of interest for both of our schools.
Taiwanese Law Collection at the Gallagher Law Library Continues to Grow
The Law Library at UW is widely recognized as one of the finest Taiwanese law collection outside Taiwan, and continues to enjoy the support of Taiwanese legal professionals. Colleagues from the Supreme Prosecutors' Office of Taiwan, who visited with us in June 2005 with Prosecutor General Wu, returned in June 2006 to generously contribute several books to our East Asian Library Department. In September 2006 we were honored to host Chief Judge Hung Chao-Lung from Taiwan Yunlin District Court and a delegation of seventeen Judges from different Taiwanese District Courts who also made a generous donation of fourteen new books in Chinese to our East Asian Library Department.