July 2, 2020 — Jerome A. Cohen, NYU professor of law emeritus and faculty director emeritus of the U.S.-Asia Law Institute, was awarded the Order of Brilliant Star with Grand Cordon by the Government of the Republic of China. Ambassador Lily L. W. Hsu, director general of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York, bestowed the honor on Professor Cohen in a virtual ceremony with the ambassador, honoree, and guests linked via teleconference.

Ambassador Hsu praised Professor Cohen for his outstanding contributions to promoting Taiwan-U.S. legal exchanges and friendly cooperative relations. She also thanked him for his contributions to the development of human rights and the rule of law in Taiwan. “It is fair to say that Jerry has not only witnessed the entire transformation of Taiwan into the full-fledged democracy it is today, but also played no small role in the process,” the ambassador said.

Professor Cohen first visited Taiwan in 1961, when it was still under the martial law rule of Chiang Kai-shek. In his acceptance remarks, Professor Cohen recalled that economic conditions then were poor, “there was no freedom of speech and law professors were demoralized.” Over the next six decades, he visited many more times and witnessed Taiwan’s transformation to a vibrant democracy. In each of 2013 and 2017, Professor Cohen participated in a review by international human rights specialists of Taiwan’s progress in implementing the two major UN human rights covenants. In his remarks today, he congratulated the government for recently establishing a National Human Rights Commission.

Professor Cohen is a leading expert on Chinese law and government and pioneer in the field of Asian legal studies in the United States, having established the East Asian Legal Studies program at Harvard Law School in 1965. He joined the NYU School of Law in 1990 and founded the U.S.-Asia Law Institute at the law school in 2006. He retired from full-time teaching on June 30, one day before his 90th birthday. The NYU School of Law marked the occasion by announcing the establishment of an endowed chair in his name, the Jerome A. Cohen Professorship of Law.

Earlier this year, Professor Cohen received an honorary doctor of laws degree from Yale University, where he had earned his JD in 1955. The Government of Japan awarded him the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon, in 2018.