Asian Law Center

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).

Many Asian Law alumni associate their time at UW with studying in the library under the care and guidance of East Asia Law Department head, Bill McCloy. Bill recently retired and it is with great appreciation that we thank him for his many years of service actively supporting Korean, Chinese and Taiwanese legal studies and offering guidance to students, faculty, and researchers alike.

William (Bill) McCloy was one of few law librarians in the U.S. fluent in both Korean and Chinese, and was professionally recognized for producing leading resources for Korean, Chinese and Taiwanese legal research and information. Together with our Japanese collections specialist, Robert Britt, Bill continued to build the Gallagher Law Library's CJK collections. Bill cataloged thousands of Korean and Chinese law books, helping to make the University of Washington's Gallagher Law Library a pre-eminent institution for East Asian legal research.

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.