Legal Education in Asia: From Imitation to Innovation

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.

Andrew Harding, Ph.D., Monash University, is Professor at the Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore.

Jiaxiang Hu, Ph.D. (2003), Edinburgh University, is Professor of Public International Law at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

Maartje de Visser, Ph.D. (2009), Tilburg University, is Associate Professor and Associate Dean (Postgraduate Teaching & Curriculum) at the School of Law, Singapore Management University.