Erin Daly, Review of Jimmy Chia-Shin Hsu, ed. Human Dignity in Asia: Dialogue Between Law and Culture

Abstract

There is simply too much to say about human dignity in law and culture to be contained within the covers of one book, even when the scope is restricted to the region of Asia. Jimmy Chia-Shin Hsu’s book, Human Dignity in Asia: Dialogue Between Law and Culture, attempts to say much of it and to ignite conversations about the remainder. It lays out the meaning of dignity in law in two ways. First, it does so in country-by-country studies that investigate not only the meaning of dignity in each country, but also the constitutional, historic, and political evolutions that have shaped that meaning, and the role of apex courts in developing a culturally specific understanding of dignity in law. The book examines eight locales: Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Singapore, and China. Each country chapter is geographically focused: not on linkages, but on the distinctive development of dignity lawplace. While the attempts to make cross-border connections are few, we learn much about each nation’s political history, as if guided by expert tour guides. Second, the book considers dignity against the backdrop of broad cultural movements, including, most notably, the principal religious waves that flow across Asia. Asia is such a huge and diverse region of the world, that it demands attention to many of the world’s major religions, from Islam to Christianity to Buddhism, and more, as each contributor seeks both to describe the religious themes that readers may not be familiar with and to discern how human dignity is conceptualized within that religious framework.