The first sustained analysis examining legal transplantation into East Asia, this volume examines the prospects for transplanting a 'rule of law' that will attract and sustain international trade and investment in this economically dynamic region. The book develops both a general model that explains how legal transplantation shapes legal development in the region, whilst developing theoretical insights into the political, economic and legal discourses guiding commercial law reforms in Vietnam. For the first time, this book develops a research methodology specifically designed to investigate law reform in developing East Asia. In so doing, it challenges the relevance of conventional convergence and divergence explanations for legal transplantation that have been developed in European and North American contexts. As the first finely-grained analysis of legal development in Vietnam, the book will be invaluable to academics and researchers working in this area. It will also be of interest to those involved in commercial legal theory.

"The reform of commercial law through harmonisation, unification, codification and other means remains one of the most important projects in developing the institutional architecture for the global economy. This edited collection engages with the challenges and contributes to a greater understanding of the problems faced by states, international organisations, and private sector actors in this ongoing reform project for commercial law. The volume takes stock of the project to-date and looks towards restructuring of the agenda to deal with new challenges. The primary aim of the collection is to understand the future of commercial law reform in a way that offers ideas and strategies for innovation in commercial law reform in substance as well as in methodologies for project selection and evaluation. In so doing, the collection informs the debate on the global reform of commercial law and will be of interest also outside of academia to those involved in the reform of commercial law around the world. The volume collects papers presented at the UK Society of Legal Scholars Annual Seminar 2017"--

Over the last few decades, many countries have reformed their secured transactions law. One of the main reasons has been the clear link between reform and the availability of credit, and the drive to improve access to finance, particularly for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises. This book focuses particularly on developing economies in Africa, which have legal frameworks influenced by English, French, Belgian, Roman-Dutch and other laws. Reform in this area of law across African countries has taken a number of forms, which are explored and discussed in this book. Secured Transactions Law Reform in Africa is a mixture of a critical description of the pre-reform law and practice, and the reform process itself. It also includes a comparative analysis of the legal provisions and an examination of the early results of the reforms. The book sets out a road map for the future of secured transactions reform; primarily in Africa, but also in other countries that have undertaken or are contemplating similar reforms. This book is the second in a series of books about Secured Transactions Law in countries around the world, and its reform, both on a national and an international scale. The first book, Secured Transactions Law Reform: Principles, Policies and Practice, was published in 2016.

Although the adoption of market reforms has been a key factor leading to China’s recent economic growth, China continues to be governed by a communist party and has a socialist-influenced legal system. Vietnam, starting later, also with a socialist-influenced legal system, has followed a similar reform path, and other countries too are now looking towards China and Vietnam as models for development. This book provides a comprehensive, comparative assessment of legal developments in China and Vietnam, examining similarities and differences, and raising important questions such as: Is there a distinctive Chinese model, and/or a more general East Asian Model? If so, can it be flexibly applied to social and economic conditions in different countries? If it cannot be applied to a culturally and politically similar country like Vietnam, is the model transportable elsewhere in the world? Combining ‘micro’ or interpretive methods with ‘macro’ or structural traditions, the book provides a nuanced account of legal reforms in China and Vietnam, highlighting the factors likely to promote, change or resist the spread of the Chinese model.

This in-depth book explores the changing role of comparative law in an era of Europeanisation and globalisation. It explains how national law coexists and interacts with supranational and international law and how legal rules are produced by a variety of institutions alongside and beyond the nation-state. The book combines both theoretical and practically oriented contributions in the areas of law and development, comparative constitutional law, as well as comparative private and economic law. It offers a plurality of perspectives on the theory and methods of comparative law as a legal discipline, but also on comparative law when concretely applied in projects of legal aid, harmonisation of law and legal reform. Offering a multi-disciplinary perspective, this book will appeal to researchers and policymakers in international organisations. It will also serve as a valuable resource for advanced level courses on comparative law, and on law reform and legal aid.

The shift of economic gravity towards East Asia requires a critical examination of law's role in the Asian Century. This volume explores the diverse scholarly perspectives on law's role in the economic rise of East Asia and moves from general debates, such as whether law enjoys primacy over culture, state intervention or free markets in East Asian capitalism, to specific case studies looking at the nature of law in East Asian negotiations, contracts, trade policy and corporate governance. The collection of articles exposes the clefts and cleavages in the scholarly literature explaining law's form, function and future in the Asian Century.