Asia-Pacific Legal Development

In this age of globalization many legal experts see evidence ofswift global movement toward an eventual single "world legalsystem." Yet, the trend to political and economic integration insome parts of the world is matched by the trend to disintegration inothers, where strong cultural and political resistance to externalinfluences exists. Asia-Pacific Legal Development traces current andprospective developments in several legal systems of the Asia-Pacificregion to make sense of these trends and counter-trends.

The contributing authors represent a wide variety of specialistexpertise, both "public" and "private," andtogether they encompass the three sectors that constitute a modernsystem of formal law: the economic, the behavioural, and the civic.Taking into account the opinions and perspectives of both indigenousand non-indigenous experts on topics ranging from prostitution toconstitutional law, the book surveys how several ASEAN nations, as wellas Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, are confronting social,economic, and legal change. In the first three parts, chapters aregrouped along general sectoral lines to cover economic, civic, andbehavioural themes, while in the fourth, cross-sectoral contexts areaddressed. With the introduction and concluding chapter, the editorsprovide an overall integrating framework as well as provocativeinsights into trends in legal development in the Asia-Pacific region,and on comparative legal research and writing in general.

Asia-Pacific Legal Development is not only an exemplarymodel for cooperative and comparative legal research and scholarlypluralism, but also a rich study of the increasingly relevant issue ofconvergence and divergence of legal systems, with a unique Asianfocus.