Recap: 2025 ALC Graduate Workshop

The inaugural Asian Law Centre Graduate Student Workshop, held over two days on 5-6 June 2025, at Melbourne Law School, The University of Melbourne, brought together a vibrant community of PhD graduate researchers from universities in Australia, Hong Kong, New Zealand, the UK and the USA.  Speakers covered topics on Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

The Workshop delved into critical discussions surrounding Asian Law and Legal Studies under the overarching theme of '(Re)/(De)Constructing Legal Narratives in Asia'. A core aim was to encourage these emerging scholars to reconsider and deconstruct the concepts of law and Asia, hence Asian law, from various disciplinary perspectives, fostering both academic exchange and invaluable networking opportunities.

Throughout the workshop, participants explored various facets of deconstructing 'Asian Law' from multiple disciplinary angles. To keep everyone energised and focused over the two days in typically gloomy Melbourne weather, the ALC provided a delightful spread of food, including tasty rendang, flavourful curry puffs, and refreshing Vietnamese rice paper rolls. The program featured six panel discussions, each chaired by leading scholars, allowing participants to present their papers for 15 minutes. These panels included:

• PANEL 1: Investigating Practices, Crafting Laws, chaired by Professor Ying Khai Liew, explored how legal concepts are redefined and laws crafted in response to evolving practices. The panellists offered insightful ways in which law can be crafted to support a new digital currency, address abusive practices in insolvency law, navigate legal complexity, and tackle new challenges for AI governance.
• PANEL 2: Narrating Gender in Asia, chaired by Professor Sarah Biddulph, delved into the complex and often messy relationship between law and gender in Asian contexts. Presentations covered how law controls the meaning of marriage and monogamy, how people mobilise against pro-natalist policies such as egg-freezing regulations, the impact of the legal concept of gender equality on gender policies within various political institutions, and how prosecutors can change their procedures to listen more to the voices of victims of sexual violence.
• PANEL 3: State Power, Crime, and Punishment, chaired by Professor Margaret Lewis, focused on the use and abuse of the state's power to criminalise, and how that impacts society. Papers presented explored topics including Indonesia’s death penalty, Indonesia's Law No. 19 of 2019 in stripping back the powers of its Anti-Corruption Commission, and the use of Philippine terrorist designation powers and state crime against activists.
• PANEL 4: Contestation of Values: Rethinking Law from Lived Experience, chaired by Dr Ken Setiawan, broadly explored the meaning of law outside the state, with panellists sharing a common research methodology rooted in interviewing and focusing on local, minority and marginalised communities. They examined how state law affects these communities and how these communities, in turn, respond to such legal frameworks. Presentations looked at indigenous communities in Indonesia, the Christian community in China, and the local communities in climate reparation cases in Bangladesh.
• PANEL 5: Law in Translation: Global Doctrine and Local Perspectives, chaired by Dr Adil Hasan Khan, investigated the complexities of translating global legal doctrines into local contexts. This panel particularly aimed to bring voices from the periphery to speak to international and transnational law. The panellists paid attention to how ideas and practices, such as foreign investment, the concept of the Rule of Law, Private International Law, and practices of unequal treatment, travel to and are adopted within Asia.
• PANEL 6: Assembling the State through Law, chaired by Professor Sarah Biddulph, focused on how states are constituted and function through legal mechanisms. Topics included China's approach to online game regulation, neoliberalism in India, the local people's deputies in China, and defections in Indian party systems.

After each panel, participants were given the opportunity to receive small-group feedback from the leading scholars and researchers who chaired their panels.

The program also featured a dedicated Roundtable Session, chaired by Professor Sarah Biddulph, which provided a valuable opportunity for self-reflection on how participants' research will contribute to Asian Law. This session invited participants to collectively ponder fundamental questions: 'What is Asian law?' and 'Where is Asia?' It further explored how thinking about Asian law impacts each participant's research, especially considering the diverse jurisdictions and specific areas of focus within Asia that each participant brought to the table.

The discussions during this session were notably lively. Participants explored the significant divide between law and society in Asian contexts, emphasising the essential role of Asian scholars in bridging this gap. One participant questioned the concept of 'Asian law', suggesting that emphasising its uniqueness might lead to self-orientalism, especially since legal issues like law and religion also appear in Western contexts, including the US. This prompted a consideration of whether Asia is truly as distinct from the rest of the world as often perceived. Another important insight related to the definition of 'Asian law', with one participant supporting a 'bottom-up' and ‘functionalist’ approach in defining ‘Asian law’, suggesting that the term should be broad and flexible enough to enable scholars to interpret the term according to their specific needs and interests. Participants also pointed to several recurring themes emerging from the workshop’s presentation, such as 'humiliation', 'isolationist tendencies', 'colonisation', 'law and religion', and an authentic 'honesty' in confronting issues as prevalent elements in Asian legal discussions. Finally, the participants also discussed the inclusion of Australia in this conversation about Asian law: is Australia part of Asia, and what is its place in the larger Asian legal framework?

By the conclusion of the discussion, the questions 'What is Asian law?' and 'Where is Asia?' linger, ready to be reconstructed and deconstructed. Nevertheless, the evident enthusiasm and passionate conversation during the roundtable sessions demonstrated that these are questions which must continue to be asked, explored and investigated, alongside the ongoing effort to foster community, collaboration and friendship among Asian legal scholars.

Thank you…

The Asian Law Centre extends its heartfelt thanks to all the dedicated presenters for sharing their innovative research, the insightful mentors who chaired panels and offered invaluable comments, and the enthusiastic participants who collectively contributed to the success of this inaugural event. Your commitment to engaging with Asian law research is truly inspiring and important. We were honoured to host such an amazing group of scholars!

I liked how the presentations were sorted into themed panels.  I found by the end of each panel I felt a lot more knowledgeable about the particular theme, even if the presenters were talking about areas of law or countries I was unfamiliar with.  I really liked my panel. We had a great discussion afterwards in the mentoring session.  It was useful talking about research with people with similar topics and at a similar stage in the PhD to me. ( Participant)