Law and Development Orthodoxies and the Northeast Asian Experience

Prof. Ohnesorge, John
Professor of Law
University of Wisconsin

The research project that forms the basis for this talk represents the culmination of several years of thinking and writing about the complexities of law and economic development, as well as the history of law in Northeast Asia, and it breaks new ground in at least two important ways. First, while intellectual histories of law and development theory are now common, there is very little work that employs the actual experience of Northeast Asia to interrogate these theories, yet it is in Northeast Asia where modern history’s most outstanding development success stories can be found. Because this seemingly obvious step is not taken, theories of law and development remain disconnected from historical experience, and seem to attract adherents based upon unstated and untested assumptions. Second, this research project proposes a way forward for law and development work which builds upon the Northeast Asian experience, but does so in a way that has not been suggested before. Law and development work affects literally billions of people in developing countries, and costs taxpayers and foundations in developed countries billions of dollars, yet many law and development practitioners express serious reservations about the utility of their work. Whatever reservations one might have about this work, it has an enormous impact on the world, it is going to continue for the foreseeable future, and it is therefore crucial that we think about new ways to assist legal reform in developing countries.