Professor Jianfu Chen

Professorial Fellow

Overview

Professor Jianfu Chen is an Honorary Professorial Fellow at Melbourne Law School and an Emeritus Professor at La Trobe University. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law (FAAL), as well as the Australian Academy of the Humanities (FAHA). He was previously Deputy Head of Law School (2006-2008) and Head of Law School (2008-2010) at La Trobe University. Professor Chen has held various visiting professorships in China, Singapore, and The Netherlands, and various visiting scholarship positions in Asia, Europe and the USA.

Professor Chen is a socio-legal scholar and an international authority on Chinese law. He specialises in international and comparative law, international trade law, human rights law, globalisation and law, and Chinese law. His approach to the study of law is socio-legal, focusing on the political, economic, cultural, historical and comparative contexts of law and its development. He has led, coordinated or been a chief investigator in several major international research projects, including two ARC Discovery Projects.

Professor Chen has authored, co-authored or co-edited more than 20 books and over 80 book chapters and journal articles. Some of his publications have been translated into French and Chinese, and some have been collected in various Collections of Major Works. His principal work includes:

  • From Administrative Authorisation to Private Law: a Comparative Perspective of the Developing Civil Law in the PRC (1995);
  • Balancing Act: Law, Policy and Politics in Globalisation and Global Trade (co-editor with G Walk, 2004);
  • Chinese Law: Context & Transformation (3rd Revised and Expanded edition, 2016); and
  • Dispute Resolution in the PRC: The Evolving Institutions and Mechanisms (co-author with ZJ Wang, 2019).