At a time when Asia represents the fastest growing economic region, there is no better moment to consider what trusts law can contribute to societal stability and economic prosperity. This book does this by offering the first work that systematically explores trusts law across the region. Many Asia-Pacific jurisdictions have integrated and developed trusts law in their legal systems; either through colonial heritage or statutory activism. But the diversity of legal traditions and local contexts has resulted in trusts laws having a significantly varied impact across the region. In the modern globalised world there is a growing need to adopt an outward looking approach in dealing with matters of common interest. This book answers this need by bringing together leading legal scholars and practitioners in the region to explore the theory and practice of trusts law, contextualised to specific jurisdictions in the Asia-Pacific. Exploring 17 jurisdictions, it brings forth both academic and practitioner perspectives to trusts law in the region.
2:30pm-2:35pm Welcome (Professor Pip Nicholson, Dean, Melbourne Law School)
2:35pm-2:45pm Introductory remarks (Associate Professor Ying Liew)
2:45pm-3:05pm Speaker 1 (Justice Susan Glazebrook)
3:05pm-3:25pm Speaker 2 (Justice Andrew Phang)
3:25pm-3:45pm Q&A and Panel Discussion (Justice Susan Glazebrook, Justice Andrew Phang, Professor Matthew Harding, Associate Professor Ying Liew)
3:45pm-3:50pm Closing remarks (Professor Matthew Harding)
Presenters
Andrew Phang
Justice of the Court of Appeal of Singapore
Dr Andrew Phang was appointed Judge of Appeal on 28 February 2006. He was appointed Vice-President of the Court of Appeal in 2018. Born in Singapore, he received his Bachelor of Laws from the National University of Singapore (NUS) in 1982. He pursued his postgraduate studies at Harvard University, where he was conferred his Master of Laws and Doctor of Juridical Science degrees in 1984 and 1988, respectively. In 1990, he was admitted as an advocate and solicitor in Singapore.
He taught at the NUS Law Faculty from 1982 to 2000. In 2000, he was appointed Professor of Law at the Singapore Management University (SMU), and a year later, became Chair of the Department of Law at SMU’s Business School. He was appointed Senior Counsel in 2004.
Dr Phang was appointed Judicial Commissioner of the Supreme Court on 3 January 2005 and elevated to a Judge on 9 December 2005, before his appointment as Judge of Appeal.
Dr Phang is Vice-President of the Singapore Academy of Law and co-chairs the Legal Publishing & Knowledge Cluster.
His extensive publications include the local edition of Cheshire, Fifoot and Furmston’s Law of Contract and (together with Prof Goh Yihan) Contract Law in Singapore (Wolters Kluwer Law and Business, 2012). He is also General Editor of, as well as a contributor to, The Law of Contract in Singapore (Academy Publishing, 2012).
Susan Glazebrook
Judge of the Supreme Court of New Zealand
Justice Susan Glazebrook has an MA (1st Class Hons), an LLB (Hons) and a Dip. Bus (Finance) from the University of Auckland and a D.Phil from the University of Oxford in French legal history. Before being appointed to the High Court of New Zealand in June 2000, she was a partner in law firm Simpson Grierson and a member of various commercial boards and government advisory committees. She served as President of the Inter-Pacific Bar Association in 1998. She was appointed to the Supreme Court of New Zealand on 6 August 2012.
Pip Nicholson
Professor
Pip Nicholson is Dean of Melbourne Law School.
Pip is a University of Melbourne graduate with a Bachelor of Arts/Bachelor of Laws and a PhD from Melbourne Law School (MLS). Pip also holds a Masters in Public Policy from the Australian National University.
Pip’s research focusses on the history and development of Vietnamese legal institutions, particularly Vietnamese courts, constitutions and, more recently, the legal profession. Her ARC-supported projects enabled research on the impacts of comparative legal development assistance in Vietnam and Cambodia, and drugs law and the death penalty in Southeast Asia. Working comparatively and with scholars across the globe, Pip has consistently interrogated questions about how scholars investigate foreign legal systems.
Previously admitted as a barrister and solicitor of the Victorian Supreme Court and the High Court of Australia, Pip’s professional experience spans commercial lawyering, legal aid, international consultancy (with a particular focus on development aid in Asia), and teaching and research at Melbourne Law School.
Matthew Harding
Professor
Matthew Harding is an internationally recognised expert on private law and the law of charities and other not-for-profit organisations. His published work combines theoretical, doctrinal and practical insights. He has published extensively on topics in the theory and doctrines of equity (especially fiduciary law), charity and not-for-profit law and regulation, the law of property, judicial practice and precedent, and the philosophy of trust and trustworthiness.
Matthew is the author of a major monograph on the theoretical foundations of charity law, Charity Law and the Liberal State (Cambridge University Press, 2014), and has edited or co-edited a number of leading collections: Exploring Private Law (Cambridge University Press, 2010) Not-for-Profit Law: Theoretical and Comparative Perspectives (Cambridge University Press, 2014); The Research Handbook of Not-for-Profit Law (Edward Elgar, 2018); Fiduciaries and Trust: Ethics, Politics, Economics and Law (Cambridge University Press, 2020); Asia-Pacific Trusts Law: Theory and Practice in Context (Hart Publishing, 2021); and Charity Law: Exploring the Concept of Public Benefit (Routledge, 2021). Matthew has published in the world’s pre-eminent law journals including the Law Quarterly Review, the Modern Law Review and the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies and is a frequent contributor to leading academic collections.
Ying Liew
Associate Professor
Ying Liew joined Melbourne Law School in 2017. He previously worked at King’s College London and University College London, and has held visiting positions at the National Taiwan University, the National University of Singapore, the University of Hong Kong, City University of Hong Kong, BPP University, and the University of Nottingham. He was also an examiner for the University of London International Programmes. Ying holds an LLB from King’s College London and a PhD from the University of Nottingham. He is an Associate of King’s College (AKC).
Ying teaches and researches in private law, with a particular focus on the law of equity and trusts, contracts, remedies, and the law of assignment. He has published in leading international journals, including the Cambridge Law Journal, Law Quarterly Review, Modern Law Review, Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Melbourne University Law Review, and UNSW Law Journal, and has contributed chapters to several edited collections.
Ying is the author of the monograph Rationalising Constructive Trusts (Hart Publishing 2017), and of Guest on the Law of Assignment which is currently in its fourth edition (Sweet & Maxwell 2021). Ying is also the General Editor of the Asia-Pacific Trusts Law book series (Hart Publishing). Each volume is an edited collection containing papers presented at the biannual ‘Asia-Pacific Trusts Law’ symposium/conference series he convenes. The first volume, Theory and Practice in Context, was co-edited with Professor Matthew Harding and published in 2021; the second volume, Adaptation in Context, is co-edited with Assistant Professor Ying-Chieh Wu and will be published in 2022.
This event is hosted by the Asian Law Centre and the Obligations Group at Melbourne Law School, The University of Melbourne and the Centre for Commercial Law in Asia at Singapore Management University.
