Call for Papers

The Third East Asian Law & Society Conference

"Building the Asian Socio-Legal Community: Theoretical Visions and Empirical Challenges"
 

Panel

"Soft Law and Community Building"

Time：March 22-23, 2013

Venue：KoGuan Law School, Shanghai Jiao Tong University

The Third East Asian Law & Society Conference will be held in Shanghai during March 22-23, 2013. The conference is hosted by KoGuan Law School, Shanghai Jiao Tong University and organized by the Law & Society Association's Collaborative Research Network East Asian Law and Society (CRN-EALS). The theme of this year's conference is Building the East Asian Socio-Legal Community: Theoretical Visions and Empirical Challenges.

Besides hard law that is enforced by states, there are many non-traditional norms taking effect in practice within the framework of social order and community building. These norms that are not legally but actually binding have been termed as "soft law". Soft law has been rather common in the governance in China, and is also taking an incomparable role in international and regional governance. Soft law may regulate the relations between private parties, between private parties and public institutions, and between public institutions, in the fields of international and regional safety, environmental protection, business, finance, sports etc. However, many questions remain largely unexplored, such as the nature and the role of soft law, the forms of soft law, the mechanism to enable soft law, the influence of soft law to behaviour of individuals and organizations, and the respective roles of soft law and hard law in maintaining order, building community and developing society. In particular, the construction and the promotion of the East Asian Socio-Legal Community may be an important opportunity to further develop practices and theories related to soft law. Therefore, we set up the panel of "soft law and community building" under the major theme of the conference in order to examine soft law within the common context of the East Asian Socio-Legal Community. We sincerely invite you to submit your papers. Our recommended subjects include, but not limited to:

1. Definition and Forms of Soft Law

2. Operating Mechanisms of Soft Law

3. Effectiveness and Legitimacy of Soft Law

4. Soft Law in Society Shaping and Building

5. Soft Law and Legal Pluralism

6. Jurisprudence of Soft Law

7. Soft Law in Private Law

8. Soft Law, Public Administration and Good Governance

For more information, please click here (Chinese), or here (English).