Legal History

专业介绍

This LLM—one of the only such programmes globally—is designed to equip students with expertise in both the substance and the methodology of transnational legal history research. The LLM in Legal History is an elite programme which admits only a small number of high-quality students. Unlike traditional taught postgraduate programmes, the LLM in Legal History has a hybrid structure, combining classroom learning and research elements. In addition to their classes, students will complete a substantial research project under the supervision of a member of the faculty, accounting for half of their credits. Through their involvement in the programme students will acquire substantial research, writing and presentation skills, paving the way to successful academic, policy and practice careers.

Studying the law from a contemporaneous perspective can help one understand the approaches of the moment. Laws and legal systems do not stay fixed for long, however; rather, year on year, decade on decade, national, transnational and international legal orders are reformed, by a combination of political, economic, technological, social and ideational forces. Exploring the field of legal history helps us understand when, why, how and in what forms legal systems developed and evolved in different places, at different times and in different contexts in the past. Understanding these histories in turn equips us to better understand how law is developing in the present and what forms it may take in the future, as well as the modes and manners in which we might attempt to influence legal systems to make them more just and equitable in the interests of national and global society as a whole.

CUHK’s LLM in Legal History is a globally leading programme, aimed at generating new generations of leading legal history scholars in Hong Kong, Asia and beyond. The programme’s base in Hong Kong is ideally suited to the exploration of both common law and civil law legal traditions, and provides a unique vantage point from which students can be exposed to novel issues in international and transnational law. The programme also draws upon and is closely connected to other initiatives in the area of legal history centered at CUHK LAW, including the Greater China Legal History Seminar Series, the talks hosted and the research undertaken by Transnational Legal History Group within the Faculty’s Centre for Comparative and Transnational Law, and the annual Asian Legal History conferences that CUHK LAW has been helping to organize for several years around the region. While in the programme, students will combine course time with substantial research on a project they will explore under the supervision of a member of the faculty, helping to hone their research, writing and presentations skills, in preparation for both professional and academic careers.