Taiwan's legal culture is based on German law

Taiwan exports computer keyboards, golf clubs and, above all, a wide range of semiconductors and other electronic parts to Germany. Meanwhile, German vehicles, machinery and chemicals are among the most important imported goods from Germany for the small island state east of China. However, one "product" from Germany has a much longer tradition in Taiwan: German law. The first German laws were adopted during the Japanese occupation of the island from 1895 – and were continued by the National Chinese Party in Taiwan. So there is a long-standing legal tradition connecting the two countries. And the Friedrich Schiller University Jena is currently cooperating with five Taiwanese universities.

One person who is particularly committed to fostering Taiwanese-German cooperation is Prof. Dr Chien-Liang Lee. The Director of the Institutum Iurisprudentiae at the Academia Sinica in Taipei received an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Law on 18 November. He was honoured in particular "for his outstanding academic achievements, especially in the field of comparative law, and his special services to legal cooperation between Germany and Taiwan", according to the certificate. "Chien-Liang Lee is shaping the Law exchange between Germany and Taiwan like no other personality," said Dean of Law Prof Dr Christoph Ohler.

A connection to Germany since his studies

Lee studied Law in his home country between 1979 and 1986 and learnt the German language and specialist terminology during his studies. His master's thesis dealt with problems of the common good in German and Taiwanese law. He moved to the Faculty of Law at the University of Göttingen. There he received his doctorate in 1994 with a thesis on the guarantee of ownership and the protection of existing rights in immission control law. Since then, Chien-Liang Lee has been a researcher at the renowned Academia Sinica, initially at the Institute of Philosophy and Social Sciences and later at the Institute of Law, where he was appointed Director five years ago.

"Prof. Lee is probably the most important Taiwanese legal scholar at present with extensive expertise in comparative law in the fields of German constitutional law, general administrative law and public commercial law, as well as environmental law," emphasized Jena lawyer Prof. Dr Matthias Knauff in his laudatory speech. Due to Lee's outstanding academic achievements, he was admitted to the Association of German Constitutional Law Professors in 2018.

However, Lee's research not only looks to the past and analyses the legal present. He also looks to the future by focussing on the subject of digital transformation. If he is successful, these findings could become another Taiwanese export hit, as this is a topic that concerns the whole world.