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This book examines territorial governance in Asia in the context of central-local relations. In an era of attempts to deal with issues such as decentralisation, conflict involving ethnic and religious enclaves, and demands for regional autonomy, it is timely to examine central-local relations from a pan-Asian perspective, assessing the attempts in a range of different systems, federal and unitary, to re-order constitutional structures for territorial governance, including local government. The book looks at the constitutional systems for organising central-local relations of this kind, and attempts to draw conclusions from contemporary experiences.

Myanmar’s Constitution of 2008 was the ‘road map’ for the reform process that began in 2011. Despite extensive criticism of this Constitution for its emphasis on the role of the military, much progress has been made towards constitutional government and law reform. With the election of the opposition NLD to government in the general election of November 2015 and the presidential electoral college election of March 2016, now is the time to consider the Constitution, and prospects and needs for constitutional change as Myanmar moves towards democracy and the rule of law. Much has been made of the Constitution’s rigidity, which is seen as an obstacle to reform and inconsistent with embracing the rule of law, human rights and multi-party democracy, especially with a rapidly transforming state and society. Nonetheless, the Constitution is also seen as having potential to be a very positive force for reform. Many issues now arise for constitutionalism and constitutional change: presidency; federalism and territorial governance; the status of minorities and freedom of religion; civil liberties in what is described as a ‘discipline-flourishing democracy’; the courts, justice and the rule of law; the electoral system; and many more. This book is an attempt to gauge the extent and potential for the entrenchment of constitutionalism in Myanmar in a rapidly changing environment.

On 16 September 1963 Malaysia came into being with the accession of Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore to the existing Federation of Malaya. This book marks the 50th anniversary of this notable event in South East Asia’s history. The focus of the book will be mainly on the experience of Sabah and Sarawak as subjects of the federation. It looks at the experience of federalism from a number of different perspectives, keeping in mind not just the effects of federalism on Sabah and Sarawak but also the effects on the federation as a whole. Has the bargain of 1963 been adhered to? Has Malaysian federalism been a successful example of this form of government in Asia, or has the bargain been undermined in ways contrary to the original deal in the Malaysia Agreement of 1963? What have been the practical effects on East Malaysia during 50 years?.

This book discusses court-oriented legal reforms across Asia with a focus on the creation of ‘new courts’ over the last 20 years. Contributors discuss how to judge new courts and examine whether the many new courts introduced over this period in Asia have succeeded or failed. The ‘new courts’ under scrutiny are mainly specialist courts, including those established to hear cases involving intellectual property disputes, bankruptcy petitions, commercial contracts, public law adjudication, personal law issues and industrial disputes. The justification of the trend to ‘judicialize’ disputes has seen the invocation of Western-style rule of law as necessary for the development of the market economy, democratization, good governance and the upholding of human rights. This book also includes critics of court building who allege that it serves a Western agenda rather than serving local interests, and that the emphasis on judicialization marginalises alternative local and traditional modes of dispute resolution. Adopting an explicitly comparative perspective, and contrasting the experiences of important Asian states - China, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Vietnam, Brunei, Thailand and Indonesia - this book considers critical questions including: Why has the ‘new-court model’ been adopted, and why do international development agencies and nation-states tend to favour it? What difficulties have the new courts encountered? How have the new courts performed? What are the broader implications of the trend towards the adoption of judicial solutions to economic, social and political problems? Written by world authorities on court development in Asia, this book will not only be of interest to legal scholars and practitioners, but also to development specialists, economists and political scientists. List of contributors Preface 1. New Courts in the Asia-Pacific Region: Law, Development and Judicialization - Andrew Harding and Pip Nicholson PART I: Introducing Economic Courts in Asia 2. Legitimacy and the Vietnamese Economic Courts - Pip Nicholson with Minh Duong 3. Reading the Tea Leaves in the Indonesian Commercial Court: A Cautionary Tale, But for Whom? - David K. Linnan PART II: Introducing Intellectual Property Courts in Asia 4. The Intellectual Property High Court of Japan - Shigenori Matsui 5. Specialized Intellectual Property Courts in the People’s Republic of China: Myth or Reality? - Connie Carter PART III: Constructing Constitutional Courts 6. A Turbulent Innovation: the Constitutional Court of Thailand, 1998–2006 - Andrew Harding 7. The Constitutional Court and the Judicialization of Korean Politics - Tom Ginsburg 8. Institutional Choice and The New Indonesian Constitutional Court - Hendrianto 9. The Indonesian Human Rights Court - Mark Cammack PART IV: Assembling Administrative Courts 10. ‘Shopping Forums’: Indonesia’s Administrative Courts - Adriaan Bedner 11. The Genealogy of the Administrative Courts and the Consolidation of Administrative Justice in Thailand - Peter Leyland 12. Compromising Courts and Harmonizing Ideologies: Mediation in the Administrative Chambers of the People’s Courts of the People’s Republic of China - Michael Palmer PART V: Analysing Anti-Graft Courts 13. The Politics of Indonesia’s Anti-Corruption Court - Benjamin H. Tahyar 14. The Philippines’ Sandiganbayan: Anti-Graft Courts and the Illusion of Self-Contained Anti-Corruption Regimes - Raul C. Pangalangan PART VI: Setting up Special Courts 15. Malaysian Royalty and the Special Court - H. P. Lee 16. Informed by Ideology: A Review of the Court Reforms in Brunei Darussalam - Ann Black 17. Courts in Xinjiang: Institutional Capacity in China’s Periphery - Pitman B. Potter Part VII: Juries, Regulation and Renovation in Japanese Courts 18. Japan’s New Criminal Trials: Origins, Operations and Implications - Kent Anderson and David T. Johnson 19. Dollars to Donuts: Japanese Courts and Corporate Accountability - Veronica L. Taylor Index Harding: Constitutional Landmarks in Malaysia: the First 50 Years (2007) Access to Environmental Justice: a Comparative Study (2007) Comparative Law in the 21st Century (2002) Law, Government and the Constitution in Malaysia (1996) Nicholson: Pip Nicholson and Sarah Biddulph (eds) (2008) Examining Practice and Interrogating Theory: Comparative Legal Studies in Asia , Brill, Leiden (Hardback) US$148.00 Nicholson, P. (2007), Borrowing Court Systems: The Experience of Socialist Vietnam , Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden (Hardback) US$194.00 Nicholson, P. and Gillespie, J. (eds.) (2005), Asian Socialism & Legal Change: The Dynamics of Vietnamese and Chinese Reform , Asia-Pacific Press, Canberra (Hardcopy) AUS$42.00