The implementation of shari'ah (Islamic law) in the province of Aceh in Indonesia was the consequence of a national policy of legal pluralism, effected in 2001 when the national government decided to give a special status and wide autonomy to this region. However, certain problems have arisen. One of these is whether the Islamic courts of justice have been conferred competence to deal with Islamic criminal law and if so, which judicial institution should deal with the matter. Another is the meaning and scope of mu'amalat law (the law dealing with human relationships). It also appears that the central government has permitted shari'ah to be implemented for political reasons.

Although Indonesia has acceded to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and freedom of religion is a mandate of the 1945 Constitution, there is a significant difference between the promise and the practice of religious liberty, especially regarding the rights of sects in Indonesia. The article explores this theme in the context of the Congregation of Ahmadiyah Indonesia, a minority Islamic sect which is not considered as an agama, or official religion, as a case study. This designation has had various discriminatory effects on its adherents, which waters down significantly the guarantee of religious freedom in Indonesia.

The death penalty is one of the most contentious issues in Korea. In contrast to other Asian countries, the issue of whether the death penalty should be abolished has been actively debated and reviewed at governmental levels and in civil society. It is important to note that it is not just civic organizations that have begun to favor abolition of the death penalty but also state organizations including the National Assembly and the National Human Rights Commission. The Constitutional Court has invalidated some disproportionate provisions in relation to the death penalty. Since President Kim Dae-Jung took office in February 1998, there has been an “unofficial moratorium” on executions.

This article provides an overview of the legal regime governing the death penalty and the ongoing debate on the death penalty in Korea. It begins by briefly reviewing international treaties that call for the abolition of the death penalty, contrasting them with the retentionist trend in most Asian countries. It then reviews the major decisions of the Korean Supreme Court and the Korean Constitutional Court. It also discusses recent moves in the National Assembly and the National Human Rights Commission to abolish the death penalty. It suggests that the Korean death penalty debate has potentially significant implications for its retentionist Asian neighbours grappling with similar issues.

A combination of factors has led to an increasing imbalance in the sex ratio of China's population. China's sex ratio at birth is 119 boys per 100 girls, far above the global norm of 106. This paper will focus on the abnormal sex ratio as a consequence of traditional Chinese gender attitudes holding women inferior and subordinate to men, which have been brought to the fore by a combination of fertility decline and technological advancement. Accordingly, any solution to the demographic problem must address these prevalent, entrenched mind-sets. The government appears to realise that existing laws prohibiting sex-selective abortion and infanticide will fail to correct the sex ratio. This paper examines the trend in government responses towards efforts to address traditional gender attitudes and argues that the demographic crisis may have turned the Chinese government into an unlikely champion of gender equality.

Public interest litigation [‘PIL’], typically defined as proceedings in which the public or the community at large has some pecuniary or legal interest, demonstrates an ability to foster human rights compliance. It does this by enabling broader community or ‘public’ interests to be recognised and enforced through the judicial process, thereby revealing greater potential than private rights litigation in addressing the systemic nature of many human rights violations. This in turn has presented greater opportunities domestically to monitor each state's accountability to international human rights standards.

This paper compares and contrasts the emergence and development of PIL in two jurisdictions - India and Australia. India was chosen for its remarkable and extensive development of PIL unparalleled in Commonwealth jurisdictions to date, and Australia, for its adoption of a much more restrained and traditional trajectory in line with other members of the Commonwealth. Although PIL has developed differently in the two countries, inevitably shaped by differences in culture, economic development, law and politics, both provide illustrations of PIL's potential (and limitations) in facilitating the development of human rights norms in domestic legal systems.

The idea of “human dignity” is accorded a prominent status in domestic constitutions and international human rights law. Its symbolism as a universal ground of human rights sits awkwardly with the absence of a precise definition. The concept has evolved over history and has been interpreted in various ways by people holding different worldviews. The elusive nature of human dignity creates challenges when it is evaluated across cultures. Despite its common association with the concept of liberal democracy, the idea of human worthiness is not necessarily absent in Asian societies, many of which function under alternative political systems.

A cross-cultural perspective requires putting aside ethnocentrism and exploring the convergence of views from different belief systems. Examples from Confucianism and Islam may provide insights on how human dignity is understood and realized in various Asian contexts.

China has taken an original and adventurous approach to the issue of over-regulation through the promulgation of the Administrative Licensing Law, which attempts to limit the number and type of licences and approvals which citizens and enterprises are obliged to obtain from the government. The Administrative Licensing Law has now been in effect for 3 years, and it is therefore an appropriate time to look at licensing and approvals in China. The article focuses on issues relating to the establishment and reduction of licensing requirements, including the actions taken by government to reduce them, the existence of “non-administrative” licensing and approval requirements and issues relating to enforcement. It concludes that although substantial progress has been made, improvements could be made in terms of dealing with the complexity of the system and providing new avenues for enforcement, and that a long-term on-going effort will be required to implement the law fully.

Since 1984, the Sultanate of Brunei Darussalam has chartered its post-independence course through its proclaimed ideological compass of MIB (Melayu, Islam, Beraja). All three pillars of MIB - Malay culture, the religion of Islam, and the institution of an absolute Monarchy - are traditional, long standing Bruneian features, which have been expertly crafted in the last two decades to act as the filter by which modernisation and development can occur. As the ideology is all-encompassing, law has not only been one of the vehicles for implementation, but is being shaped to accord with the tenets of MIB. This can be seen in legislation, legal institutions and processes for dispute resolution with the promotion of a more distinctive Malay character as well as a discernible Islamization agenda. The paper explores each of these as well as processes of enacting laws in this Sultanate where, in the absence of an elected democratic parliament, all law emanates from the monarch.

This article seeks to assess the respective contributions of China and India to the law of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and to gain from a comparative perspective a better understanding on the potential impact of China on the WTO system. It observes that, although China's share in world trade is more than four times as large as that of India, China has played a much less significant role than India in both WTO rulemaking and adjudicatory processes. To date the major impact of China on WTO law stems from the special terms of its accession, many of which depart from the basic norms and principles of the WTO. India, on the other hand, has been one of the most active contributors to the development of WTO law and jurisprudence. The author suggests that the divergence in WTO legal practices of the two countries is attributable to a number of factors and that the presence of these factors will continue to influence their behavior within the WTO system.

The dialogue on data protection has so far been dominated by European and American voices. There are currently a few international conventions in place such as the Council of Europe's 1981 Convention for the Protection of Individuals with regard to the Automatic processing of personal data, the 1980 OECD Guidelines Governing the Protection of Privacy and Transborder Flows of Personal Data , which apply to 30 OECD countries, and the EU Directive 95/46/EC on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data, which binds EU member states but has had some impact on non-European countries due to the restriction on cross border flow of information.

This has changed with the emergence of the APEC Privacy Framework in 2004 which focuses on the importance of the free flow of information in the digital age. Does the APEC Privacy Framework have anything of value to add or does it dilute the standards already in place? This article will examine these questions and argue that perhaps the APEC Privacy Framework is the first step towards a truly global standard for data protection.