Fu, Gillespie , Nicholson & William Partlett on East Asian Socialism and East Asian Legality: A Response to Ewan Smith (Asian J of Comp L)

"East Asian Socialism and East Asian Legality: A Response to Ewan Smith"
Hualing Fu, John Gillespie, Pip Nicholson and William Partlett

Asian Journal of Comparative Law 

Published online on 19 November 2019

Introduction: Ewan Smith has written a thoughtful and nuanced review of Socialist Law in Socialist East Asia that effectively highlights the main difficulties in researching and analyzing socialist law in East Asia. He has a keen understanding of socialist law and supports the objective of the book, which is to place 'socialism back in the foreground of our analysis of law in East Asia'. He discusses the problems the authors faced in disentangling socialist law from socialist state institutions. In addition, he reflects on what `socialist' law might resemble if it were disaggregated from Marxist-Leninist thought. Smith also points out that law is not socialist just because self-declared socialist states say it is socialist. Or as he eloquently puts it: 'The party's account of socialist law is a treacherous guide to its true nature and true objectives'... Click here to read the article.