Over the last half century, East Asia’s economic miracles have propelled global economic growth. The way these miracles have been achieved has often confounded conventional wisdom derived from Western legal scholarship – making East Asia an effective laboratory for testing ostensibly universal legal theories. The rise in the global influence of East Asia has expanded international interest in legal phenomenon in the region to all areas of its legal systems. This burgeoning international interest in diverse legal phenomenon in East Asia has created a rich source for comparative law scholarship. It is in this context that this Issue explores a panoply of fascinating legal developments in East Asia from a variety of perspectives.

This Issue commences with Kevin Kwok-yin Cheng et al.’s skilful analysis of late guilty pleas in Hong Kong, which concludes that the pressures of the criminal justice process – rather than considerations of actual culpability – lead defendants to ‘crack’. The next article by Swati Jhaveri examines the problems and a potential solution to Hong Kong’s constitutional design, which is extremely timely considering its current state of political deadlock. The Issue continues with an illuminating article by Shigenori Matsui that provides a sharp critique of the conservative agenda to rollback human rights in Japan by amending the constitution to restore ‘traditional Japanese values’. Sean McGinty and David Green provide the next article which employs an insightful empirical analysis of the ‘say on pay’ rule in the Japanese Companies Act to better illuminate Japan’s famously frugal executive compensation system. The next article by Sung Eun (Summer) Kimdemonstrates how Korea’s private equity regulatory regime is an important counterexample to the existing discourse as it shows that private equity funds can survive, and in some cases thrive, under a ‘law-first’ regulatory approach. Wee Meng Seng et al. round out the articles in this Issue by providing an insightful comparative analysis of the role that courts have played in determining the remuneration of practitioners in corporate insolvencies in Singapore, Australia, and the United Kingdom. Kevin Y.L. Tan and Michael W. Dowdle continue this Issue by providing a window into the history of the early enterprise of comparative legal scholarship in South East Asia through their edited transcript of a ‘no holds barred’ interview with Professor Michael Barry (MB) Hooker – the renowned Southeast Asian comparative law scholar who is credited with coining the term ‘legal pluralism’. The Issue comes to a spirited close with a vigorous exchange between Mariana Prado and Jedidiah Kroncke over the claims made in Kroncke’ s recently published book: The Futility of Law and Development: China and the Dangers of Exporting American Law.

This Issue would not have been possible without the skill, hard work, and dedication of the Journal’s Executive Editors (Kevin Y.L. Tan and Wang Jiangyu), Deputy Editor (Dian A.H. Shah), Book Review Editor (Michael W. Dowdle), Associate Editors (Samantha S. Tang, Ayesha Wijayalath, and Alan K.Y. Koh), Assistant Editors (Nisha Rajoo and Chong Siew Men), and our administrative team (Elizabeth Chua and Khairiyah Binte Abu). We are also grateful to our twenty-four Subject Editors, based primarily at leading law schools across Asia, which distinguishes the Journal in its ability to deliver an authentic Asian voice in a way that influences the leading international literature. Finally, we would like to thank our Advisory Board, made up of preeminent members of the Asian law fraternity, for their continued support and guidance.

We hope that you enjoy reading this Issue as much as we enjoyed working on it.