아시아법 연구의 어제와 오늘 그리고 내일

Study on Asian laws was first started by the United States. In 1950s and 1960s,the United States started to study laws of developing regions such as Latin America, Asia, and Africa from the viewpoint of ‘law and development’. European countries also began studying laws and legal systems of Asian countries, from the standpoint of comparative law. Among Asian countries, Japan was the first country to start studying Asian laws. Korea followed thereafter, along with Taiwan and China etc. As Korea entered the 2000s, it was recognized that the advancement of Korean laws, legal system, and legal culture reached high level, and the competency of Korean legal experts also enhanced greatly. A number of neighboring countries are coming to Korea to learn its legal system and culture and are requesting that Korea exchanges resources or helps to develop their legal system and nurture legal experts. However, study on Asian laws is only at its beginning stage in Korea, and thus we have very little outcome of the studies. There are two main approaches of studies on Asian laws. One is approaching from the viewpoint of western laws, and the other is approaching from inside, that is from the standpoint of Asian laws. The former comprises of approaches from the perspective of comparative law, sociology of law and the modernization of law, and from the view of ‘law and development’. The main approach of studies on Asian laws has been from the viewpoint of ‘law and development’. On the other hand, there are also two approaches to study Asian laws from the inside: one is from the viewpoint of laws of the third world, and the other is from the viewpoint of pluralist legal system. Among these two, the latter is more widely used. This paper touches firstly upon the developing history of law and development doctrine of the U.S. who was the first country to study Asian laws from a western perspective, then looks into the current status of Asian laws studies within the Asian region such as Japan and Korea, and lastly defines the direction where Asian laws study should head and tasks that lay ahead of us in doing so. Asian laws are consisted of different legal systems of each country, which includes each country’s traditional law, adopted laws, and development laws. In the process of modernization in Asia, it turned out that the adopted laws and development laws are not so efficient as in Europe or USA. Especially, when the adopted law and development law cannot be in harmony with the existing traditional laws and legal culture, public confidence in the new laws inevitably falls leading to ineffectiveness of the laws. Therefore, Asian countries must continuously push forward to have the adopted laws and development laws work in harmony with their existing traditional laws and culture. Also, in the process of carrying out industrialization and democratization, Asian countries should collaborate and exchange resources with neighboring countries so as to speed up achievement of modernization. At the same, it would be necessary to study how to harmonize each country’s laws and/or regional laws with other country’s laws and/or regional laws. This kind of study on laws could contribute to lay the sound foundation of an Asian Common Market or Asian community law. In order to do so, we should study on Asian laws not only from the viewpoint of western laws, but also from our own viewpoint as owners of the laws. Furthermore, we have to study more seriously about individual laws of each country. And also engage in more in-depth studies on the Asian regional laws that are composed of Indian laws, Islamic laws and Far East Asian laws.