This book looks at the history of the courts in South Korea from 1945 to the contemporary period. It sets forth the evolution of the judicial process and jurisprudence in the context of the nation's political and constitutional transitions. The focus is on constitutional authoritarianism in the 1970s under President Park Chung Hee, when judges faced a positivist crisis as their capacity to protect individual rights and restrain the government was impaired by the constitutional language. Caught between the contending duties of implementing the law and pursuing justice, the judges adhered to formal legal rationality and preserved the fundamental constitutional order, which eventually proved essential in the nation's democratization in the late 1980s. Addressing both democratic and authoritarian rule of law, this volume prompts fresh debate on judicial restraint and engagement in comparative perspectives.

A comparative, systematic and critical analysis of constitutional courts and constitutional review in Asia.

This book examines Japan and Korea's post-World War II constitutional history to challenge enduring assumptions about the nature of constitution-making.

Analyzes courts in fourteen selected Asian jurisdictions to provide the most up-to-date and comprehensive interdisciplinary book available.

Launched in 1991, the Asian Yearbook of International Law is a major internationally-refereed yearbook dedicated to international legal issues as seen primarily from an Asian perspective. It is published under the auspices of the Foundation for the Development of International Law in Asia (DILA) in collaboration with DILA-Korea, the Secretariat of DILA, in South Korea. When it was launched, the Yearbook was the first publication of its kind, edited by a team of leading international law scholars from across Asia. It provides a forum for the publication of articles in the field of international law and other Asian international legal topics. The objectives of the Yearbook are two-fold: First, to promote research, study and writing in the field of international law in Asia; and second, to provide an intellectual platform for the discussion and dissemination of Asian views and practices on contemporary international legal issues. Each volume of the Yearbook contains articles and shorter notes; a section on Asian state practice; an overview of the Asian states’ participation in multilateral treaties and succinct analysis of recent international legal developments in Asia; a bibliography that provides information on books, articles, notes, and other materials dealing with international law in Asia; as well as book reviews. This publication is important for anyone working on international law and in Asian studies. The 2017 edition of the Yearbook is a special volume that has articles highlighting current international legal issues facing particular Asian states.

This is the first book on Korean legal history in English written by a group of leading scholars from around the world. The chapters set forth the developments of Korean law from the Chosŏn to colonial and modern periods through the examination of codified laws, legal theories and practices, and jurisprudence. The contributors’ shared premise is that the evolution of Korean law can be best understood when viewed in terms of its interactions with outside laws. Each chapter integrates literature in Korean, Japanese, Chinese, and Western languages into comprehensive analyses to make up-to-date research available to readers both inside and outside Korea. This volume provides a solid framework from which to approach Korean legal history in the perspective of comparative legal traditions.

The Republic of Korea was colonialized in the early 20th century, achieved its independence, and rose from the ashes of the Korean War to become an Asian power. Korea’s ascent coincides neatly with the advent of globalization and growing importance of international law in managing the increasing interactions between states and other non-state entities such as multinational corporations, non-governmental organizations, and international organizations like the United Nations. The Making of International Law in Korea addresses the developments of international law in Korea from human rights concerns to law of the sea issues; from maritime delimitation and access to ocean resources to other non-security matters. Offered as a textbook for academics and students, the authors demonstrate the increasingly important role of international law in shaping international relations in Northeast Asia and Korea.

While popular movements in South Korea rightly grab the headlines for forcing political change and holding leaders to account, those movements are only part of the story of the construction and practice of democracy. In Top-Down Democracy in South Korea, Erik Mobrand documents another part – the elite-led design and management of electoral and party institutions. Even as the country left authoritarian rule behind, elites have responded to freer and fairer elections by entrenching rather than abandoning exclusionary practices and forms of party organization. Exploring South Korea’s political development from 1945 through the end of dictatorship in the 1980s and into the twenty-first century, Mobrand challenges the view that the origins of the postauthoritarian political system lie in a series of popular movements that eventually undid repression. He argues that we should think about democratization not as the establishment of an entirely new system, but as the subtle blending of new formal rules with earlier authority structures, political institutions, and legitimizing norms.

This volume focuses on democratic experimentalism, gathering a collection of original and previously unpublished essays focusing upon its major outlines, as well as specific aspects ¿ both promising and troublesome - of this theoretical approach. Together these essays offer conceptions of democracy and democratic governance that emphasize and highlight experimentalist aspects of pragmatic thought, particularly Deweyan pragmatism, and its relationship to instantiation in concrete social and political institutions. Issues of democratic governance, political organization and the relationship of law to democracy are analyzed.

Law in Korea has historically been viewed as merely a tool of authoritarian rule, but since the transition to democracy in 1987 it has served a more important and visible role as a force for social change. With contributions from leading US and Korean scholars, Legal Reform in Korea explores this response to domestic and international pressures, applying a socio-legal perspective to both legal practices and the legal institutions themselves, which have become a major political issue throughout the developing world. An invaluable resource for students of Asian law and Korean studies.