Pioneering the Study of Chinese Law in the West

As one of the many students who have benefited, directly and indirectly, from the unconventional choice that Jerome A. Cohen (“Jerry” as we all know him) made to undertake the study of Chinese law in the 1960s, I have long been aware of the great debt that we owe to Jerry for his adventurous spirit and infectious enthusiasm. He was uniquely able to both inspire and energize his students while at the same time building an academic enterprise—and later a thriving international legal practice—at two great American law schools (Harvard and New York Universities) and a major international law firm (Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison). Looking back at what has been accomplished in this field, it is truly astonishing what his intellectual ambition and focus on international understanding have achieved. All the more remarkable, given the international situation at the inception of Jerry’s extraordinary career, was the foresight of Jerry and his original sponsor, the Rockefeller Foundation, to imagine the future importance of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and its legal system. Remembering the antipathy of the Western world following the creation of the People’s Republic China in 1949 (thenceforth known as “Red China”) and the circumstances of the Cold War, the very idea of the PRC having a legal system—much less one worthy of academic attention—was almost laughable. Even the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), the antagonist of the United States and the West during that era, was considered a better bet; indeed, at Harvard and Columbia Law Schools, the academics Harold Berman and John Hazard had been studying the USSR’s legal order. Japan also emerged, following its defeat in World War II, as having a legal order worth the legal academy’s attention. First, at the University of Washington, and later at a few other U.S. law schools, scholars such as Dan Fenno Henderson began documenting both the legal history and postwar legal development of Japan. The PRC at this time seemed like another planet, and its legal order would be unlikely to merit serious study.

Antipathy · China · Economic history · Enthusiasm · International law · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · Thriving · History · International Law and Aviation · Law · Philosophy