Common law forms in Civil Law Asia

Careers, industries, and international development strategies have been built on assumptions about the economic optimality and civic desirability of common law ideas and institutions, and the resulting inevitability of their global diffusion. Distinctive common law notions—from the trust to trial by jury—have indeed found fertile ground even in the diverse civil law jurisdictions of Asia. But what does the common law have to offer the legislators and jurists of civil law Asia in an era of waning Anglophone hegemony?

This three-day workshop will bring into productive dialogue scholars representing multiple civil law Asian jurisdictions in which common law ideas have informed legal reform. While the processes and implications of many such borrowings have previously been explored, such discussions have occurred in relative isolation from each other. This workshop will cross-fertilise between these (superficially) discrete experiences to expose commonalities and divergences. Such insights will have great theoretical and practical importance as geopolitical change challenges the common law’s status as an ‘obvious’ model for legal reform across Asia.

If you require accessibility accommodations or a visitor Personal Emergency Evacuation Plan please contact the event organiser.

PROGRAM

THURSDAY 5 DECEMBER

12.00-12.30 Registration

12.30-13.00: Welcome, opening remarks and housekeeping

13.00-14.00: Lunch and discussion

Theme 1: Regimes of Property and Custodianship

14.00-15.30

• Masayuki TAMARUYA (Professor, University of Tokyo): Trust Law in Civil Law Asia: Taking Stock
• Joyman LEE (Lecturer, University of Glasgow): Common Law Forms and Decolonial Private Law in Northeast Asia

16.00-17.30

• Rebecca LEE (Associate Professor, Hong Kong University): Adapting Legal Traditions: The Emergence of Special Needs Trusts in Chinese Private Law
• Yun MA (Associate Professor, China University of Political Science and Law) & Wenzhen SHI (PhD Candidate, Chinese University of Hong Kong): A Taste and A Test of the Public Trust Doctrine in Chinese Public Data Utilization

FRIDAY 6 DECEMBER

Theme 2: Legal Sources, Structures and Ideologies

09.00-10.30

• Simon BUTT (Professor, University of Sydney): Judge-made Law in Indonesia’s Supreme Court
• Dat T. BUI (Associate Professor, Vietnam National University): The Adversarial Principle in Vietnamese Administrative Litigation: The Soviet Legacy of Inquisitorialism versus the Global Spread of Due Process

11.00-13.15

• Benjamin CHEN (Associate Professor, Hong Kong University): Precedent and Chinese Legality: The Guiding Case System After a Decade
• Mao-Hong LIN (Assistant Professor, National Taipei University): Making Precedents through Consensus or Compromise: Stare Decisis in Taiwan
• Nguyen The Duc Tam (Lecturer, Vietnam National University) & Luu (‘Peter’) Huy Hoang (LLM Candidate, Australian National University): Why Cross-Examination Does Not Always Translate: Legal Culture and the Perception of Procedural Justice

13.15 – 14.45 Lunch

Theme 3: Commercial and Corporate Law & Governance

14.45 – 17.00

• Lijuan XING (Associate Professor, Sun Yat-sen University): Chinese Maritime Law 30 Years On: The Common Law ‘Enclave’ at a Crossroads
• Wei ZHANG (Assistant Researcher, University of International Business and Economics): Legal Transplantation from a Functional Perspective: Reviewing Fiduciary Duty in China’s Company Law
• Wenting CHENG (Senior Lecturer, University of Queensland) & Anne McNAUGHTON (Senior Lecturer, Australian National University): Reconciling the Transplants of Anticipatory Breach and Einrede der Unsicherheit into Chinese Contract Law

SATURDAY 7 DECEMBER

Theme 4: Rights and Duties

Moderator: Luke Nottage (Professor, University of Sydney)

09.30-11.00

• Yuhong ZHAO (Associate Professor, Chinese University of Hong Kong): Punitive Damages for Environmental Torts in China
• Xu WANG (Post-Doctoral Scholar, University of International Business and Economics): From Exotic Concepts to Highlights of the Civil Code: How Common Law Affects the Right to Privacy in China

11.30-13.00

• Hieu NGUYEN (Senior Legal Counsel, Sembcorp Industries Ltd): Equity in Vietnam
• Normann WITZLEB (Associate Professor, Chinese University of Hong Kong): Responding to Hurtful Digital Communications in Hong Kong: The Emergence of a New Tort of Harassment

13.00-14.00: Lunch

Theme 5: Fusions and Frictions

14.00-16.15

• Madi KENZHALIYEV (PhD Candidate, Turan University): The International Financial Centres of Astana, Dubai and Qatar as Legal Transplants: Cross-fertilization between Newly-established Jurisdictions and Host Legal Systems
• Simon HENDERSON (Visiting Lecturer, University of Tokyo): The Politicisation of the ‘Rule of Law’ in Hong Kong: Legal Principles, Human Rights and the Import of Chinese Communist Party Legal Concepts
• James FISHER (Lecturer, Australian National University): The Lucky Legal Family? ‘Legal Origins’ in the Asian Century

16.30-17.30

• Plenary discussion and planning: next steps