Asia-Pacific lawyers

Everyone knows now about the Apec (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) Summit coming up next week, but only a handful know of an ongoing meeting of law school deans from the Apru (Asia-Pacific Rim Universities).

This concept of an Asia-Pacific rim overlaps to some extent with that of the Apec, which includes Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong-China, Indonesia, Japan, Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Chinese Taipei, Thailand, the United States, and Vietnam. Members of the Apru overlap with those of the Apec, excluding four countries: Brunei Darussalam, Papua New Guinea, Peru and Vietnam.

Because the University of the Philippines College of Law is hosting the Apru meeting of law school deans, I had to drop in and deliver a short message.  I took the opportunity to remind the deans that we need to look at how future lawyers should be ready to tackle the challenges of a region which is geographically vast but which is “shrinking” in our age of globalization, so much so that the Pacific Ocean might as well be called the Pacific Lake.

Just last month, UP hosted another meeting of the Apru, about hazards and disasters, showing how the  vulnerabilities of the “Pacific Lake” can no longer be discussed in terms of individual countries, but as the Asia-Pacific rim. Given the many changes in this vast region, law schools will have to closely reexamine their programs and find ways to integrate an Asia-Pacific perspective that considers geography, history, anthropology, sociology, economics and other social sciences, as well as the natural sciences and engineering. Transdisciplinary perspectives will provide our future lawyers with tools to better handle questions involving governance, diplomacy, and the many other concerns of law.

21st-century literacy

To excel in law, the 21st-century Asia-Pacific graduate must acquire a certain literacy about this Asia-Pacific region.  It must start with understanding commonalities in often ancient legal traditions and codes, many of which are still flourishing among our indigenous peoples (IPs), as well as through philosophical religious codes, Shariah in particular and, in East Asia, various forms of Confucianism that form the bedrock of ethics and sociopolitical thought.

This Asia-Pacific legal literacy must also incorporate an understanding of the colonial legacies that shaped the laws in the region.  We can see the imprints of the British, the Dutch and the French in the laws, legal systems, even lawyers’ training, of Southeast Asian countries.

The Philippines’ laws still use many provisions of the Spanish Legal Code of 1889, given that we were in fact part of Nueva España (or New Spain), administered through Mexico and encompassing Central America and parts of what is now the United States, as well as the Philippines and several Pacific islands.  In many ways, the “Pacific Lake” was very Hispanic.

In the 20th century, the Philippines had a new colonial power, the United States, which left an imprint on our laws and our legal system. So deep is the imprint that even today, many of our laws and legal terminology hew closely to that of the United States and its “ancestor,” English common laws.

The colonial legacy was not only that of the West, but also of local powers. The East Asian region carries, for better or for worse, a Japanese cachet that shapes commonalities as well as tensions.  There is ambivalence as well, with the legacies of many forms of Confucianism seen as upholding traditional structures such as the family, and yet sometimes labeled as obstacles to modernization.

Law and radicalism

There was a panel in the law school deans’ meeting where two retired UP law professors—Pacifico Agabin and Merlin Magallona—spoke of the need to acknowledge radical traditions that shape the law profession. Agabin mentioned that Karl Marx was a law student and that Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela were lawyers. (I did think of two of Asia’s greatest republican leaders—China’s Sun Yat-sen and our own Jose Rizal—and the fact that they were not lawyers, but physicians.) I liked the way Magallona referred to the need to expose our law students to “the jurisprudence of poverty”: What does the law mean, how does the law affect the poor?

Radicalism is important in the way it challenges old ways of thinking, but today, we also face the specters of many extremist groups.  Again, lawyers are challenged to think of radicalism, but more in terms of how it shapes our laws and the delicate balance between national security and human rights.

The Asia-Pacific lawyer of tomorrow will have to learn about Asean integration. Laws on so many aspects—from the practice of professions to the registration of food, drugs, cosmetics—are being reviewed, with attempts, not always easy, at harmonization.  Even more difficult, but imperative, is the search for ways to develop law and diplomacy for a peaceful arbitration of disputes, particularly around maritime areas.

Law and diplomacy must go beyond the laying of territorial claims toward an understanding of our neighboring countries’ legal traditions and perspectives—Chinese legalism, for example—to better respond to political rhetoric and theater. Chinese legalism grew out of Confucianism and shapes Chinese realpolitik, yet we have few non-Chinese experts who can dissect that realpolitik.  Perhaps they will emerge someday from our Asia-Pacific law schools.

The Asia-Pacific rim is usually associated with the “Ring of Fire,” an area marked by the constant threats of volcanic eruptions and earthquakes.  Maybe if we work harder to get the rim’s universities to talk more with one another, we might see an Asia-Pacific “ring” of peace and prosperity.

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