The State of Comparative Law and its Teaching in Asia – An Introduction

This Special Issue on the State of Comparative Law and its Teaching in Asia is the result of a two-day conference organized and financed by the Centre for Asian Legal Studies (CALS), National University of Singapore (NUS), and the Asian Law Institute (ASLI), with the support of the International Academy of Comparative Law (IACL). Both ASLI and CALS have as their main objective the promotion of Asian comparative law. ASLI was established in  at the initiative of NUS by leading Asian law schools to foster Asian legal scholarship and to facilitate greater interaction amongst legal scholars in Asia. ASLI now has more than  member schools. It publishes this Journal. CALS was established in  to facilitate research on Asian law at NUS, again in collaboration with scholars from the whole region and beyond. The IACL, headquartered in Paris, was founded in The Hague in . It has extensive membership in Europe and North America and wants to expand its membership in Asia. Sponsoring this event was part of current efforts by IACL to reach out to Asia. The conference which led to this Special Issue was held at the NUS Faculty of Law on  and  September . The first day of the conference, sponsored by CALS, was on The State of Comparative Law in Asia; and the second day of the conference, sponsored by ASLI, was on Teaching Comparative Law in Asia. Hence, the two parts in this Special Issue. The conference saw twenty-seven colleagues present their papers. Some of the papers have been or will be published elsewhere, but we were able to assemble eleven of the papers presented at the conference in this special issue. A collective reflection on comparative law and its teaching in Asia was long overdue. Of course, there have been comparisons and even competition between the different legal traditions of Asia long before Western legal traditions were imposed or