The Asian challenge to the universality of human rights has sparked off intense debate. This volume takes a clear stand for universal rights, both theoretically and empirically, by analysing social and political processes in a number of East and Southeast Asian countries. On the national arenas, Asian values are linked to the struggle between authoritarian and democratic forces, which both tend to convey stereotyped images of the 'west', but with reversed meanings.

Less noticed in the West than wars, terrorism and economic trends has been the historic development since World War II of constitutional government and law in Asia. Lawrence W. Beer has been a close observer of Asian linkages among law, politics, culture, and national security issues for over fifty years. His perspectives have been refined during long residence in Asia, especially Japan, by substantial friendly interactions with Asian legal scholars, judges and attorneys involved in the world of human rights constitutional law. This volume, which will be widely welcomed by students and researchers, brings together a selection of Beer’s many works previously published in diverse venue, but no longer easily accessible. The collection opens with a review of constitutionalism in Asia and the United States and concludes with a recent examination of Japan’s rejection of war: ‘Japan’s Constitutional Discourse and Performance’. By way of Afterword, the author offers an in-depth review of ‘Globalization of Human Rights in the 21st Century’.