Program on International Law and Relations in Asia

The U.S-Asia Law Institute is a leading forum in the United States for informed debates on international law topics relevant to East Asia. We promote the study and application of international law to regional and international conflicts and disputes in Asia.  

In our teaching, research, and conferences, we apply the framework of “comparative international law” and ask whether, despite claims to universality, the rules of international law or perspectives on those rules vary among nations or regions. We inquire into whether there is an overarching “Asian perspective,” unique, or country-specific views on international legal regimes, as well as how views on particular international legal matters differ among scholars across East Asia.

The USALI Program on International Law and International Relations in Asia has four components: an annual international law colloquium, an annual conference, periodic talks/webinars on international law topics, and periodic essays on the same.

The USALI Colloquium on Globalization, International Law, and East Asia

Each year Professors Jose E. Alvarez and Frank K. Upham offer the USALI Colloquium on Globalization, International Law, and East Asia, a one-semester course designed to expose NYU Law students to a range of perspectives on international law and its application to contemporary issues in East Asia.

Each time the colloquium is taught, we bring into the classroom a different selection of leading scholars to share their works in progress on cutting-edge issues in international law of consequence to East Asian countries. Topics may include maritime disputes, national security issues related to cyber commerce and big data, continuing tensions produced by transitional justice litigation, human rights concerns, proposed reforms to international regimes such as trade and investment, or other timely topics of concerns to scholars, governments, or international civil society.

 The colloquium seeks to inspire a new generation of scholars of Asian international law while also enabling scholars of U.S. law to become more familiar with important international legal issues in Asia. Students can expect to:

• Work with select issues involving international law and apply them in particular settings,

• Understand contemporary challenges to “universal international law,” particularly from the perspective of “comparative international law,”

• Evaluate claims that there are distinct characteristics or aptitudes within select East Asian countries towards contemporary legal disputes,

• Better understand the connections between domestic legal structures (e.g., the role of national courts) and positions taken by countries in international forums, and

• Engage in the development of legal scholarship. 

The curriculum for the most recent USALI Colloquium can be found here.

Annual International Law Conference

USALI hosts an annual high-profile conference on an international law topic that has broad interest to both governments and academics and deserves in-depth attention.

The most recent USALI international law conference was held online from Nov. 2-4, 2022 on the topic “Toward a Human Right to Claim Innocence.” USALI partnered with the Innocence Network and Duke University School of Law (the Wilson Center for Science and Justice and the Center for International and Comparative Law) to organize the conference, which had three panels:

• International Law’s Innocence Gap, a panel discussion with Luca Lupária, Brandon L. Garrett, Laurence R. Helfer, and Jayne Huckerby

• Strategies from Other New Rights Campaigns, a panel discussion with Jayne Huckerby, Inga Winkler, Mart Susi, Sarah Chu, and Mong-Hwa Chin

• A Case Study: The Human Right to A Clean Environment, Laurence R. Helfer, John H. Knox, and Marc Limonn

Maritime Dispute Resolution Project

Since 2018, USALI has been conducting research into interstate maritime disputes in order to better understand the circumstances that facilitate the successful resolution of disputes and contentious issues. To date, we have examined 19 cases that have been resolved through adjudication, arbitration, negotiation, or conciliation. Future rounds will address the political dynamics of dispute resolution. Our aim is to distill lessons for governments.

More information about the project, case studies, and a research report can be found here.

Guest Speakers

USALI hosts a weekly speaker program during the academic year. Talks during the past 12 months that have focused on international law or policy topics include:

• Noriyuki Shikata, Setsuo Miyazawa, Troy A. McKenzie, Carolina van der Mensbrugghe, Bruce Aronson: The Importance of US-Japan Scholarly Exchanges

• Jose Alvarez with Rangita de Silva de Alwis as discussant: Women’s Property Rights Under CEDAW

• Yuki Tatsumi: Japan’s Strategic Interests in Taiwan

• Jay L Batongbacal and Peter Dutton: Challenging China: The Philippine Experience in the South China Sea

• Yuko Nishitani and Linda Silberman: Implementing the Child Abduction Convention in Japan and the US

• Kyungjin Oh: CEDAW and the Korean Women’s Movement

• Carole J. Petersen: How CEDAW Is Implemented in East Asia

• Judith Bauder: CEDAW and the Protection of Women’s Property Rights

• Maria Adele Carrai: Extraterritoriality in China's Overseas Special Economic Zones

• LIU Nengye: China and the Future of the High Seas: Searching for Sustainability

Online Essays

USALI launched a new online essay series, USALI Perspectives, in October 2020 in order to advance dialogue between the U.S. and East Asian legal communities. The short essays are intended to be relevant and accessible to readers beyond academe who are interested in law and policy in and about Asia. Many of the essays over the past 12 months addressed topics in international law and policy, including: 

• Carole J. Petersen: CEDAW’s Impact in East Asia, Part I and Part II

• Tamar Groswald Ozery: The Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act: Investor Protection or Geopolitics?

• Nobukatsu Kanehara: A Long-Term Vision for a Free and Open Indo-Pacific

• Rangita de Silva de Alwis: The Future of CEDAW

• Aaron Halegua and Katherine Zhang: Opposing Forced Labor in Xinjiang

• Frank K. Upham: In Search of a Rule of Law Model? Try Japan

• John Kamm: Of Dialogues and Prisoner Lists

• Timothy Webster: The Pacific Alliance Treaty Organization: A Proposal

• Travis Farr: Reassessing Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge Tribunal

• Tan Hsien-Li: Adaptive Protection: Strengthening ASEAN’s Human Rights Regime through Scrutiny

• Tommy Koh: The United States and the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea

• Priya Pillai: Myanmar and the Myriad Efforts Towards International Justice

• José E. Alvarez: Is the UN Charter Order Dead After Ukraine?

International Law and Policy Publications

 Our faculty, affiliated scholars, and visiting scholars have published these recent works on international law and policy:

• Jose E. Alvarez, “Capitalism as Civilisation A History of International Law. By Ntina Tzouvala. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2020, Pp. vii, 239, Index,” 117 American Journal of International Law, 364, 2023

• Jose E. Alvarez, “The WHO’s Mixed Human Rights Messages,” 4 Yrbk Int’l Disaster L. 306, April 2023

• Jose E. Alvarez, “Biden’s International Law Restoration,” 53 NYU Journal International Law & Politics, 523, 2021.

• Jose E. Alvarez, “The WHO in the Age of the Coronavirus,” 114 American Journal of International Law, 578, 2020.

• Jose E. Alvarez, “Epilogue: 'Convergence' Is a Many-Splendored Thing,” in Adjudicating Trade and Investment Disputes: Convergence or Divergence? 285, Szilárd Gáspár-Szilágyi, Daniel Behn and Malcolm Langford, eds., Cambridge University Press, 2020.

• Alvin Y. H. Cheung, “Hong Kong: The End of Delusion,” Critical Asian Studies, February 8, 2021.

• Yu-Chie Chen, Jerome A. Cohen, “Why Does the WHO Exclude Taiwan?” Council on Foreign Relations, April 9, 2020.