It was another busy year for the Asian Law, Politics and Society (ALPS) Program. The Fall saw a
good deal of Japan-related activity, building on Professor Tom Ginsburg's summer visit to Japan
where, among other things, he taught at the first summer session of the new University of Tokyo
Law School. The College of Law hosted Professor Luke Nottage of Sydney University, who spent
two weeks at Illinois to work on a new project on commercial law reform in Japan; Dean Emeritus
Kazuo Sugeno of Tokyo University Faculty of Law, who provided an insider's view of legal
education reform; and J. Mark Ramseyer, Mitsubishi Professor at Harvard Law School, who held a
reading group discussion on his book, Measuring Judicial Independence. In early Spring the College
hosted a delegation from Keio University Law School to sign an Agreement to exchange students
and faculty. In addition, the College of Law welcomed alumni Shunpei Tanaka, Kozo Yabe and
Glenn Newman, who gave generously of their time to teach the Doing Business in Japan course.
Thanks to you all!
Another ALPS highlight was the October visit of noted Thai social activist Sulak Sivaraksa, who gave
lecture to a packed house on Buddhist Concepts of Law. The very next week, Kyu Ho Youm of the
University of Oregon spoke to faculty on Press Freedom in Korea. Professor Tom Ginsburg traveled to
Mongolia and Beijing to address a reunion of the campus Freeman Fellows Program as well as to
visit law schools in China and Mongolia. He also visited Taipei to continue research on
constitutional reform and the role of lawyers in democratization there.
In April, the Program co-organized a major campus-wide conference on Asia in a Globalizing World,
sponsored by the Center for East Asian Studies. The conference featured panels on Chinese and
Japanese legal reform, and welcomed an all-star team of professors from Japan, Europe and North
America. The keynote speaker was former Prosecutor General Akio Harada from Japan. Harada is a
friend of the College who Dean Hurd met in Tokyo in June 2003, and who has played a key role in
sending young Japanese prosecutors to Illinois for the last several years.
Visitors from Asia continue to enrich the life of the College. Nyamosor Tuya, former Foreign
Minister of Mongolia, spent the year at the College completing a book on democratization. Our first
visiting Japanese judge, Junko Semmatsu, joined prosecutors Tomoko Suzuki and Kiyotaka Kunogi.
Korean prosecutor Youngkee Lee also spent the year here. We have also just welcomed Qinglin Ma
from Xian University in China, who will be spending a year working on issues of language and the
law.
We appreciate all your support and advice this past year, and hope we can welcome you to
Champaign in the not too distant future.
The Asian Law, Politics and Society Program is supported by contributions from alumni and supporters and from the Raymond Geraldson Fund of the University of Illinois College of Law.
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