Asian Law Center

During the 2012-13 Academic Year, the Asian Law Center celebrated its bicentennial anniversary . We began with two back-to-back October conferences in Seattle and in Tokyo honoring former Asian Law Center Director Professor John O. Haley. In March, we welcomed back Professor Dan Foote for a public lecture on the saiban’in system and criminal justice reform in Japan.  In May we celebrated Professor Roy Prosterman, as well as the the 20th anniversary of the Sustainable International Development Graduate Program, with a panel discussing emerging legal challenges to inclusive development in Myanmar (Burma).

Our year-long celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Asian Law Center culminated in a special event on June 13, 2013, at the Four Seasons Hotel. The celebration, led by Dean Kellye Y. Testy and ALC Director Jon Eddy, recognized the lifetime achievements of five of our distinguished alumni throughout Asia:

• Tasuku Matsuo M.C.L. '69
• C.J. Kim Ph.D '72
• Liu Guoyuan LL.M. '82
• Erman Rajagukguk LL.M.'84, Ph.D '88
• Tay-sheng Wang LL.M. '90, Ph.D. '92

Each of the honorees emphasized how much the faculty, staff, librarians, and their peers meant to their education and propelled them to where they are today. It reminded us, reflected Dean Testy, of the enormous influence that our faculty members have on our students' lives and, in turn, the influence our students have on our world.

Founded fifty years ago, with just one faculty member, the ALC is now an international hub of legal thinking. The impact of the program is felt around the globe, with multiple generations of graduates serving as leaders in business, government and academia.

The Law, Technology & Arts Group, CASRIP, in collaboration with the Asian Law Center will host the 2013 Global IP Week from May 3-10.  Key events include: A presentation on Russian Patent Law and Practice on May 3; The IP and National Innovation Strategies in Asia-Pacific Conference on May 4, bringing together scholars from Germany, Japan, Korea, China and the United States; A lecture on patents and trade secret protection in Germany, on May 6; And a May 8 lecture on Chinese experiences and lessons in Implementing IP Strategy.  The closing event for the 2013 Global IP Week is a conference entitled "The Future of Green Technology: Policy Consideration for Obama's Second Term," organized by Professor Don S. Zang.  Scholars from China, Canada, Germany and the United States will discuss (a) the energy strategies in China, Canada, and their impacts on the United States; and (b) the role of patent law in promoting green technology.

We are honored to host Annette Lu Hsiu-lien, Vice President of Taiwan from 2000 to 2008 and current president of Taiwan Alliance for Green 21. Madam Lu will deliver a lecture entitled “A New Perspective on the Asia Pacific" at UW on Friday, April 5, from 3:30-5:30pm at the Burke Room inside the Burke Museum.  In her talk, Madam Lu will present her proposal for resolving the military crisis over the Diaoyutai Island territory, claimed by Taiwan, Japan, and China, as well as highlight new strategies for improving foreign relations in the Asia-Pacific region.

The lecture is co-sponsored by the Asian Law Center, in honor of its 50th anniversary, and by the China Studies Program in the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies.

Madam Lu is a writer, politician, and antinuclear activist. A graduate of National Taiwan University, University of Illinois, and Harvard University, Lu rose to prominence as the founder of feminist movement in Taiwan. Later, she became a leader in an opposition movement calling for democracy and an end to the Kuomintang authoritarian rule. On December 10, 1979, she delivered a speech at an International Human Rights Day rally (known as the “Kaohsiung Incident”), and charged with “violent sedition” and sentenced to prison by a military court. Lu was released in 1985 after 1,933 days of imprisonment. In 1993, Lu was elected as a member of Taiwan’s national parliament and in 1997 she was elected as the Magistrate of Taoyuan County. In 2000, she was elected the first female Vice President. In 2004, she was re-elected after being struck by a bullet on the eve of the election. After her retirement in 2008, Lu established the International Federation of Business and Professional Women-Taiwan. She is currently involved in two national campaigns: the “Less Meat, Less Heat” Campaign to combat climate change and a movement to halt construction of Taiwan’s 4th Nuclear Power Plant.

UW President Michael K. Young will make his first international trip on behalf of the University.  The President’s three-city tour will begin in Taiwan March 28 and wrap up April 9 in Tokyo, with a stop in Seoul on April 3. He is looking forward to visiting with our many alumni and friends in Asia.

Jeffrey Riedinger (J.D. '80), professor and dean of International Studies and Programs at Michigan State University (MSU), has been named vice provost for global affairs at the University of Washington.  The UW Office of Global Affairs oversees the university's multiple activities in the global arena including study abroad, exchanges for students and faculty with universities in other countries, and support for international research and centers the UW has established abroad.

Riedinger, was also appointed faculty with the UW School of Law.  An expert on the political economy of land reform and sustainable agriculture and natural resource management, he has conducted research in East and Southeast Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, Central America, the Middle East and South Asia.  One ongoing project involves colleagues from the UW, universities in Beijing and Landesa conducting surveys of China's rural families to provide evidence-based recommendations to the Chinese government to enhance long-term land-use rights for farmers.  Riedinger has also conducted briefings on foreign aid, land reform and other development issues for members of the White House staff, state department and USAID personnel, members of Congress and their staff, World Bank, non-governmental organizations and private foundations.

UW School of Law successfully hosted a graduate student research workshop on November 15th with National Taiwan University (NTU) School of Law. Three graduate students from NTU and three students from UW School of Law presented their papers, which were then commented by faculty members from both schools. Dean Shieh Ming-Yan led a group of four faculty members and students from NTU visited UW on NOvember 14 and 15. Dean Shieh met with Dean Kellye Y. Testy and the two deans renewed a cooperation agreement between the two law schools. The day-long student presentations event was the first this kind in recent years. UW Professors Kathryn Watts, Mary D. Fan, Jonathan Kang and Clark Lombardi, Don S. Zang and Dr. Dana Raigrodski attended the students presentations and commented on the papers. UW students Jessica Montgomery (J.D./LLM), Linda Yanti Sulistiawati (PhD Candidate) and Tau-Chou Paul Chang (PhD Candidate) presented their papers. Students on both sides enjoyed the engaging comments and substantive discussions. The event was led by Professor Don S. Zang, Director of Chinese Legal Studies and Dr. Dana Raigrodski.

During the 2012-13 Academic Year, the Asian Law Center will celebrate its bicentennial anniversary . We begin with two back-to-back October conferences in Seattle and in Tokyo honoring former Asian Law Center Director Professor John O. Haley.

UW School of Law and the Asian Law Center  are pleased to honor Professor Haley by bringing together distinguished scholars and Asian Law Center alumni and friends to discuss current topics in Asian law and specifically law in Japan in two Festschrift Conferences entitled “Law in Japan and its Role in Asia: Between East and West”. The first conference will take place at the University of Washington School of Law in Seattle, on Friday October 19, 2012. Following a keynote address by Professor Haley, distinguished Asian Law scholars from around the world will discuss the role of courts in law in Japan and elsewhere in Asia, as well as current topics in Asian law ranging from environmental law in China to corporate finance and insolvency in Japan.

The following Monday, on October 22nd, Professor Haley, joined by UW School of Law Dean Kellye Testy, Associate Dean Pat Kuszler and Asian Law Center faculty and staff Jon Eddy, Toshiko Takenaka, Clark Lombardi, Dongsheng Zang, Jonathan Kang and Mie Murazumi will participate at a second conference co-hosted with Waseda University Faculty of Law in Tokyo. At Waseda, eminent academicians and members of the judicial bench and practicing bar will further expand on the role of courts in Asia, and particularly on judicialization in Asia.

Professor Haley is one of the nation's outstanding international and comparative law scholars and is widely credited with having popularized Japanese legal studies. In 1969, Haley received a fellowship from the University of Washington and was in one of the first classes to graduate from the Asian Law Program. After working for several years in law firms in Japan, he joined the law faculty at the University of Washington, where he remained for nearly 26 years, directing the Asian and Comparative Law Program from 1974 to 2000. Professor Haley’s numerous scholarly works span issues ranging from international trade policy and comparative law to Japanese land-use law, Japanese and East Asian business transactions, and Japanese law and contemporary society. On June 19, 2012, Professor Haley was 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.

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 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."

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.

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.
 

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.