America's senior expert on Chinese law and NYU Law scholar visits UH Manoa School of Law

Jerome Cohen to help launch law school's new Institute of Asian-Pacific Business Law

University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Contact:
Cynthia Quinn, (808) 956-5516
Dale Lee, (808) 956-8636
William S. Richardson School of Law
Posted: Mar 5, 2007

HONOLULU — The William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa will host the country‘s senior expert on East Asian law, New York University School of Law Professor Jerome Cohen, in a series of talks and lectures at the law school and other public venues in March. Cohen‘s visit will also kick off the School of Law‘s new Institute of Asian-Pacific Business Law (IAPBL), led by director and law professor Charles Booth.

Cohen pioneered the introduction of East Asian legal systems and perspectives into American legal curricula as director of East Asian Legal Studies at Harvard Law School from 1964-1979. He also pioneered international law practice relating to China when he opened the Coudert Brothers office in Beijing in 1979. He is the American co-director of the new Jiaoting University-NYU Center for Chinese and American Law in Shanghai, the co-director of NYU‘s US-Asia Law Institute, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York where he serves as an adjunct senior fellow for Asia studies.

The following is a schedule of Cohen‘s law school lectures and public speaking engagements:

  • Monday, March 12
    12:35 p.m.

    Asia Law Talk: "The Satisfactions of Asian Law"
    School of Law, Room 254
  • Monday, March 12
    2:30 p.m.

    "Normalizing U.S.-China Relations, 1966-79: Memoirs of an Academic Participant-Observer"
    Co-sponsored by the Center for Chinese Studies and East-West Center
    Burns Hall
  • Wednesday, March 14
    12:35 p.m.

    Faculty colloquium: "Are China‘s Lawyers an Endangered Species?"
    School of Law, Room 254
  • Thursday, March 15
    5 p.m.
    Inaugural Institute of Asian-Pacific Business Law (IAPBL) Distinguished Public Lecture

    "Settling Business Disputes with Chinese Entities: Seeking Truth from Facts"
    Co-sponsored by the IAPBL and Pacific-Asian Legal Studies Program
    School of Law, Classroom 2

Cohen is also well known for his commitment to service, particularly in the human rights area. He has represented Human Rights Watch — Asia at trials in Asia and continues to serve on its board of directors. Since 2001, Cohen has represented many American-based Chinese academics detained and tried in China, including Song Yongyi, Gao Zhan and Liu Shaomin. For this contribution, he received an honorary degree from Dickinson University. Cohen was a Fulbright Scholar in France from 1951-1952, and earned his bachelor‘s and law degrees from Yale. He clerked with U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren and Justice Felix Frankfurter.

To complement the program, Cohen‘s wife, Joan Lebold Cohen, will also provide a separate lecture on Chinese Art on Sunday, March 11, at 1 p.m. at the Honolulu Academy of Arts on "How Post Modern Chinese Art Conquered the Millennium."

Joan Cohen is a renowned art historian and photographer who specializes in Chinese art and film. Her most recent book, "The New Chinese Painting, 1946-1986," introduced recent generations of Chinese artists to the West. She has curated many exhibitions of Chinese art, and she was a lecturer at Tufts University School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston for 22 years. She is a research fellow at Harvard University‘s Fairbank Center for East Asian Studies and an associate of the Columbia University Modern China Seminar.

For more information, contact Cynthia Quinn, director of communications and external relations for the School of Law, at 956-5516. For more information about the Institute of Asian-Pacific Business Law, contact Director Charles Booth at 956-5355.

For more information, visit: http://www.hawaii.edu/law