The U.S.-Asia Law Institute welcomes a small number of visiting scholars each fall to work on self-directed research projects addressing issues involving law in East Asia, including in the domestic law of individual East Asian jurisdictions, comparative law, and international law. Applicants should be legal scholars or practitioners who are highly motivated to advance knowledge, engage with new perspectives, and network with colleagues from around the world. The application period for 2025-2026 visiting scholars is now open until January 31, 2025.

Beginning in the 1950s, Japan’s Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) has been an important instrument for Japanese diplomacy.  Its initial focus on economic development in Asia was characterized as being both nonmilitary and nonpolitical.  However, this cold war strategy has evolved over the past two decades, in large part due to the rise of China, to include both national security challenges and the promotion of universal values.  How will Japanese ODA policy respond to the current challenge of striking a balance between promoting universal values and avoiding offense to recipient governments?  Can Japan play a special role as the developed world’s “ambassador” to the Global South?  Hiroaki Shiga, a professor at Yokohama National University, will join NYU Law Adjunct Professor Bruce Aronson in a conversation on the evolution and current challenges of Japan’s ODA policy

In September, the federal court in Brooklyn unsealed an indictment against Linda Sun, a former aide to New York Governor Kathy Hochul, for failing to register as a foreign agent of the government of the People’s Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party. Xuan W. Tay writes that while the art of influence is inseparable from the work of diplomacy, international law does not give PRC officials free rein to carry out influence operations inside other countries.  

In 2019, Matthew S. Erie, an associate professor of modern Chinese studies and member of the law faculty at Oxford University, began an ambitious project called China Law and Development in an effort to understand the role that law plays, directly or indirectly, in China’s outbound investment.  As he wraps up the project in 2024, the U.S.-Asia Law Institute invited Professor Erie to share some of what he has learned