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Keun Gwan Lee

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Prior to the introduction of European international law into East Asia, the region had its own international normative order. This order enjoyed an extraordinarily high degree of continuity through no less than a couple of millennia. The replacement of this order by a new international order that had a European origin was an event of world historical significance. Since the middle of the 19th century, international legal relations among East Asian nations have been largely regulated by this normative system that had originated in Europe.

The (re)emergence of East Asia (in particular, China) as a major player on the international scene in the post-1945 period, however, is increasingly eroding the once unassailable superiority of Europe in the discourse of international law. China and other East Asian nations want the predominantly Euro-centric international law of today to be reformulated in the direction of reflecting their own normative expectations and lived experiences to a greater extent. The recent debate about the East Asian challenge for human rights is an apt example. As a normative system that is cognitively open to “non-legal” factors such as power and politics, international law is bound to be substantially impacted upon by these claims and arguments put forward by East Asian nations.

Having said that, one should not forget that these East Asian nations do not form one single monolithic entity. There are many international legal issues and disputes still outstanding among these states, as will be shown by the wide-ranging subject-matters to be dealt with in the class. In fact, this region is conspicuous by the glaring absence of effective regional arrangements or regimes for international legal issues, such as the protection of human rights, the maintenance of international peace and security, environmental protection and so on. This fact constitutes a striking contrast with the ever-deepening regional integration of Europe, the formation of economic blocs in the form of NAFTA, MERCOSUR, etc. Now the question is why the East Asian region, which has enjoyed substantial cultural homogeneity throughout a long period of time, has failed to up to now to find a common voice around which the nations in the region can come together in the international arena such as the United Nations.

In this course, an attempt is made to answer this question by delving into some of the salient international legal issues or disputes, such as territorial disputes, allocation of marine resources, post-World War II settlement, that still need to be resolved in the East Asian region. In so doing, we will also try to formulate, if tentatively, the ideal normative framework that can facilitate the intra-regional cooperation in various fields. Given the close interdependence of todayfs world, one should not also lose sight of the importance of (re)formulating this normative framework in a way that enhances active interaction and communication with the other regions of the world.

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class performance-40%,
written examination-50%,
attendance-10%.

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