Asian Legal History Conference: Lessons from the Past for the Present

08:30–09:00  Registration & Coffee                                                                                         

09:00–09:15  Welcome & Opening Remarks (the Cube)

Ngoc Son Bui, Professor of Asian Laws, Faculty of Law, University of Oxford

09:15–10:15  Keynote Address (the Cube)

Fernanda Pirie, Professor of the Anthropology of Law, Faculty of Law, University of Oxford
Applying Laws and Exercising Judgement: How Tibetans addressed a Universal Dilemma

10:15–11:45  Parallel Panels – Session 1

Panel 1A: Global Companies in Asia: Law and History (The Cube)

Adil Hasan Khan, Senior Research Fellow, University of Melbourne
Corruption, Contagion and Espionage: Remaking Corporate Diplomacy from Company State Wakils to British Raj Politicals

André Dao, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Melbourne
Corporate Diplomacy and Legal Technique in Global Capitalism

Zhonghua Du, PhD Candidate, University of Amsterdam
Planting Addictions: Opium Trade and the Colonial Expansion of the VOC in Asia

Yilin Wang, Assistant Professor, University of Macau
Chinese Kongsi – From the Company-State to the State-Company

Sundhya Pahuja, Melbourne Laureate Professor, University of Melbourne (Chair)
Historically Inflected Jurisprudence: Notes on Method

Panel 1B: Islamic Law Histories (Room D)

Yasser Arafath, Associate Professor, University of Delhi
Slaves by the Ocean: Malabar Ulema, Slave-Laws and Legal Pluralism in the Abode of God (1550s–1900s)

Iza Hussin, Associate Professor, University of Cambridge (Chair)
All the Seas Were Ink: Itineraries of Law, Islam and Sovereignty

Md Anisur Rahman, Associate Professor, Independent University, Bangladesh
Indispensable, Yet Intolerable: Sayed Ameer Ali and the British Legal Empire in South and Southeast Asia

Panel 1C: Transnational Legal Education and Transplantation (Room F)

Makiko Hayashi, Professor, Nagoya University (Chair)
Educating the Law as Public Order

Mate Paksy, Professor, Catholic University of Lille
Boissonade in Japan: Natural Law, Legal Positivism, and the Struggle for Legal Scholarship

Lu Quynh Anh Nguyen, PhD Candidate, Jean Moulin Lyon III University
Mixed Legal Transplant as a Political Strategy: The Making of Vietnam’s 1995 Civil Code

11:45–12:00  Coffee Break

12:00–13:30  Parallel Panels – Session 2

Panel 2A: Histories of International Law in China – All Under Heaven? (The Cube)

Ignacio de la Rasilla, Professor, Wuhan University (Chair)
China and the Turn to the National in the History of International Law

Inge Van Hulle, Professor, KU Leuven
The Opium Wars, Extraterritoriality and International Drug Control

Prof. Xiao Yongping, Distinguished Professor and Director Wuhan University Academy of International Law and Global Governance, Wuhan University

The Hand that Rocked the Chinese Cradle of Talents in International Law - Prof. Han Depei (1911-2009)

Prof. Christopher Rossi, Professor, University, The Arctic University of Norway 

In the Garden of Gethsemene: US-Sino Relations in the History of International Law during the Republican Period

Ryan Martinez Mitchell, Associate Professor, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
The Republic of China and the League of Nations

Dr Hao Yayezi, Senior Research Fellow, Wuhan University Academy of International Law and Global Governance. 

The Long Road to The Hague - Judge Ni Zhengyu of the ICJ (1906-2003)

Panel 2B: Beyond the Private/Public Law Division: Taiwan (Room D)

Ying-Yi Lin, J.S.D. Candidate, Stanford Law School (Chair)
Incorporating Family into Company: A Legal Reconstruction of Taiwanese Family Business in the Early Twentieth Century

Keng-Yu Chu, Research Student, Kyoto University Graduate School of Law
Reframing Family Property Relations through the Land Registration System

Kuan-Ting Chen, J.S.D. Student, Cornell Law School
How Property Law Undermines Affirmative Action: Taiwan’s Indigenous Reserved Land Policy

Yung-Cheng Lin, S.J.D. Candidate, University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School
The Transplantation of Regulatory Discourse in Taiwan

Panel 2C: Environmental Law and Colonialism (Room F)

Jia Wang, Lecturer, Swansea University
Standard Contracts as Colonising Tools for Asian Marine Insurance Law

Rebecca Khan, Associate Professor, De La Salle University (Chair)
The History of Environmental Litigation in the Philippines

Crisela Bernardino, Research Fellow, British Institute of International and Comparative Law
From Environmental Constitutions to Global Courts: Asia’s Climate Law Trajectory

13:30–14:30  Lunch

14:30–16:00 Parallel Panels – Session 3

Panel 3A: Chinese Legal Histories (The Cube)

Ningning Liu, PhD Candidate, Queen’s University Belfast
Rethinking Origins of Gender Equality: Li Zhi and Nonstate Normative Orders in Late Ming China (1550–1620)

Michelle Miao, Associate Professor, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Gender, Status, and the Dual Faces of Capital Punishment

Jedidiah Kroncke, Associate Professor, University of Hong Kong
Wu Jingxiong’s Cold War Dilemma

Guobin Zhu, Professor, City University of Hong Kong (Chair)
The Journey of Constitutionalism from the West in Modern China: Achievements and Lessons

Zhaoxin Jiang, Professor, Sun Yat-sen University
The Journey of Constitutionalism from the West in Modern China: Achievements and Lessons

Panel 3B: International Economic Law and Governance (Room D)

Sandra Marco Colino, Associate Professor, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (Chair)
The Integration of Antitrust Law within China’s Legal Tradition

Cenuk Sayekti, Lecturer, Universitas Airlangga
Beyond Efficiency: A Historical Inquiry into the Non-Economic Goals of Early Competition and Fair Trade Legislation in ASEAN States

Amber Darr, Lecturer, University of Manchester
Knowledge as Power: Big Tech, the East India Company, and the Regulatory Challenge of Containment

Jiaxin Li, PhD Researcher, Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory
Revisiting China’s Encounter with International Economic Law during the Interwar Period

Panel 3C: Colonial Legal Legacies (Room F)

Santy Kouwagam, Postdoctoral Researcher, Leiden University
From Colonial Codes to Modern Courts: The Evolution and Contemporary Significance of Indonesian Private Law

Maarten Manse, Researcher, Linnaeus University, Hans Hagerdal, Professor, Linnaeus University and Santy Kouwagam, Postdoctoral Researcher, Leiden University
A Layered Legal Lexicon: Tracing the Historical Performative Power of Dutch Legal-Administrative Formulas

Thi Phuong Nguyen, PhD Candidate, City University of Hong Kong
French Law in Indochina

Kartina Choong, Professor, Multimedia University, Malaysia
Decolonising Article 160 of the Malaysian Constitution: A Long Overdue Step

Manav Kapur, Assistant Professor, University of Austin, Texas (Chair)
Evacuees Across the Ocean: The Extraterritorial Application of South Asia’s Evacuee Property Law, 1949–56

16:00–16:15  Tea Break

16:15–17:45  Parallel Panels – Session 4

Panel 4A: British Empire (The Cube)

Priyasha Saksena, Associate Professor, University of Leeds (Chair)
Medical Registration and the Politics of Professional Hierarchies in Colonial India

Yuan Yi Zhu, Assistant Professor, Leiden University / University of Oxford
Reverse Legal Circulation? Indian Judges on the Privy Council, 1909–1949

Pooja Fulara, Assistant Professor, University of Delhi
Law, Labor, and Legacy: Colonial Governance and Migration in the Himalayan Hills

Himanshu Agarwal, PhD Candidate, University of Cambridge
The Rise and Fall of Whipping: Towards a Political Economy of Punishments of Colonial India

Nikitas Hatzimihail, Professor, University of Cyprus
The Indian Ocean in the Mediterranean Sea: Law Reform and Indian Transplants in British Colonial Cyprus

Panel 4B: International Law (Room D)

Zülâl Muslu, Assistant Professor, Tilburg Law School
Lessons Without Linearity: The Epistemology of Encounter in Ottoman Echoes of Grotius

Prabhakar Singh, Professor, BML Munjal University (Chair)
The Estate’s Law, 1793–1933

Romel Bagares, Professorial Lecturer, Philippine Judicial Academy
International Law and Juridical Technique in the Early American Occupation of the Philippine Islands

17:45–18:30  Concluding Discussion & Closing (The Cube)

Professor Ngoc Son Bui & Professor Christopher Roberts 

19:00 Conference Dinner – St Hugh’s College, Oxford