Albert H.Y. Chen - Böcker

Human Rights in Asia considers how human rights are viewed and implemented in Asia. It covers not just civil and political rights, but also social, economic and cultural rights. This study discusses the problems arising from the fact that ideas of human rights have evolved in Western liberal democracies and examines how far such values are compatible with Asian values and applicable in Asian contexts. Core chapters on France and the USA provide a benchmark on how human rights have emerged and how they are applied and implemented in a civil law and a common law jurisdiction. These are then followed by twelve chapters on the major countries of East Asia plus India, each of which follows a common template to consider the context of the legal system in each country, black letter law, legal discussions and debates and key current issues concerning human rights in each jurisdiction.

Human Rights in Asia considers how human rights are viewed and implemented in Asia. It covers not just civil and political rights, but also social, economic and cultural rights. This study discusses the problems arising from the fact that ideas of human rights have evolved in Western liberal democracies and examines how far such values are compatible with Asian values and applicable in Asian contexts. Core chapters on France and the USA provide a benchmark on how human rights have emerged and how they are applied and implemented in a civil law and a common law jurisdiction. These are then followed by twelve chapters on the major countries of East Asia plus India, each of which follows a common template to consider the context of the legal system in each country, black letter law, legal discussions and debates and key current issues concerning human rights in each jurisdiction.

This book examines administrative law in Asia, exploring the profound changes in the legal regimes of many Asian states that have taken place in recent years. Political democratization in some countries, economic change more broadly and the forces of globalization have put pressure on the developmental state model, wherein bureaucrats governed in a kind of managed capitalism and public-private partnerships were central. In their stead, a more market-oriented regulatory state model seems to be emerging in many jurisdictions, with emphases on transparency, publicity, and constrained discretion. This book analyses the causes and consequences of this shift from a socio-legal perspective, showing clearly how decisions about the scope of administrative law and judicial review have an important effect on the shape and style of government regulation. Taking a comparative approach, individual chapters trace the key developments in the legal regimes of major states across Asia, including China, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. They demonstrate that, in many cases, Asian states have shifted away from traditional systems in which judges were limited in terms of their influence over social and economic policy, towards regulatory models of the state involving a greater role for judges and law-like processes. The book also considers whether judiciaries are capable of performing the tasks they are being given, and assesses the profound consequences the judicialization of governance is starting to have on state policy-making in Asia.

This book examines administrative law in Asia, exploring the profound changes in the legal regimes of many Asian states that have taken place in recent years. Political democratization in some countries, economic change more broadly and the forces of globalization have put pressure on the developmental state model, wherein bureaucrats governed in a kind of managed capitalism and public-private partnerships were central. In their stead, a more market-oriented regulatory state model seems to be emerging in many jurisdictions, with emphases on transparency, publicity, and constrained discretion. This book analyses the causes and consequences of this shift from a socio-legal perspective, showing clearly how decisions about the scope of administrative law and judicial review have an important effect on the shape and style of government regulation. Taking a comparative approach, individual chapters trace the key developments in the legal regimes of major states across Asia, including China, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. They demonstrate that, in many cases, Asian states have shifted away from traditional systems in which judges were limited in terms of their influence over social and economic policy, towards regulatory models of the state involving a greater role for judges and law-like processes. The book also considers whether judiciaries are capable of performing the tasks they are being given, and assesses the profound consequences the judicialization of governance is starting to have on state policy-making in Asia.

Public Law in East Asia is a collection of the leading English-language articles on constitutional and administrative law in the Asian region, written by many of the leading scholars from this area. The region has its own distinct legal and political traditions, and its systems of government have facilitated dynamic economic growth, but the role of public law has not been well understood. Covering a wide range of jurisdictions in a single volume, this collection provides insights into the ways in which institutions of Western origin have been integrated into Asian political and legal cultures, producing new syntheses.

The book is an in-depth study of the origins and the trajectories of the law governing social policies in Brazil, China, India, and South Africa, four middle-income countries in the global South with a history in social policy making that starts in the 1920s. The policies of these countries affect almost half of the world’s population. The book takes the legal framework of the policies as a starting point, but the main interest lies behind the letter of the law: What were the objectives and goals of social policy over the course of the last 100 years? What were the ideas, ideologies, and values pursued by relevant actors? The book comprises four country studies and a comparative study. The country studies concentrate on the political and social context of social policy making in Brazil, China, India, and South Africa as well as on the ideas, ideologies, and values underpinning the constitution, statutory laws, and case law that frame and shape social policy at the national level. The country studies are complemented by a comparative study exploring and describing the commonalities and differences in the ideational approaches to social policies across the four countries, nationally and – in the formative decades – internationally. The comparative study also identifies the characteristics that make Brazilian, Chinese, Indian, and South African social policies distinct from European social policies. With its emphasis on law and drawing on legal scholarship, the book adds a new dimension to the existing accounts on welfare state building, which, so far, are dominated by European narratives and by scholars with a background in sociology, political science, and development studies. This book is relevant to specialists and peers and will be invaluable to those individuals interested in the fields of comparative and international social security law, human rights law, comparative constitutional law, constitutional history, law and development studies, comparative social policies, global social policies, social work, and welfare state theory. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.