Charles D. Booth is an expert on comparative, cross-border and transnational insolvency. He specializes in Asian issues and from 2000 to 2006 headed the Asian Institute for International Financial Law at the University of Hong Kong, where he taught for over sixteen years.

Ronald C. Brown is a labor and employment law expert who specializes in comparative and Chinese labor law issues. During 2004-05, he was a Fulbright distinguished lecturer at Peking University. He served as Director of the University’s Center for Chinese Studies  from 2000 to 2006.

Williamson B.C. Chang who was born and raised in Hawai`i, is a recognized expert on Native Hawaiian issues and has served as principal investigator on research projects examining water rights in Hawai`i, American Samoa and Micronesia.

Alison W. Conner is a Chinese law and legal history specialist who has lived and taught in Chinese Asia for fourteen years, including a semester as a Fulbright distinguished lecturer at Tsinghua University during spring 2004. She now serves as Director of International Programs at the Law School.

Lawrence C. Foster is a Chinese studies specialist who is actively involved with the East-West Center and in international bar organizations; he served as dean of the Law School from 1995-2003 and now runs the school’s student externship program.

Mark Levin is a Japanese law expert who taught law for several years at Hokkaido University before joining our faculty. He writes on the regulation of smoking and tobacco enterprises in Japan, legal education in Japan, and the legal circumstances of race and indigenous peoples in Japan.

Melody Kapilialoha MacKenzie is a Native Hawaiian law expert and Hawaiian rights attorney who has taught the Native Hawaiian Rights Clinic course since 2000. She has participated in many conferences and symposia relating to Native Hawaiian legal issues and now serves as the inaugural director of the Law School's new Center for Excellence in Native Hawaiian Law.

Jon Van Dyke is an expert on international, ocean and Pacific island law who has published extensively on international law, law of the sea, and international human rights. He supervises the Law Schools highly successful Jessup International Law Moot Court team and is currently an adjunct research associate at the East-West Center.

Our PALS faculty also includes colleagues with joint appointments in the Law School.

Carole Petersen is Interim Director of the Spark M. Matsunaga Institute for Peace and holds a visiting joint appointment at the Law School. She taught law in Hong Kong from 1989 to 2006 and served as director of the University of Hong Kong's Center for Comparative and Public Law from 2001-04. Her main research areas are international human rights, equality and non-discrimination, and women and the law.

Katherina Heyer holds a joint appointment in the Law School, the Department of Political Science, and the Center for Disability Studies. She studied Japanese language and culture in Kyoto and spent a year in Tokyo doing fieldwork for her Ph.D. dissertation on disability politics in Germany and Japan.

Because Asia and the Pacific are so central to our mission, many other colleagues engage in research and teaching related to Pacific-Asian legal issues. David Callies, for example, has surveyed land and environmental laws throughout the Asian region and has lectured on land use and property law in China, Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan and Australia. John Barkai teaches classes in international negotiation and intercultural negotiation, with a focus on Asia; he has taught ADR in Japan, Hong Kong, Korea and Micronesia. Danielle Conway-Jones, who specializes in intellectual property, has spoken at conferences in China, Mongolia and Micronesia, and has written on the rights of indigenous peoples to traditional knowledge. Justin Levinson, who joined our faculty in 2004, pursues research on cultural psychology and law, with a focus on Asia, particularly China; he has also served as a visiting assistant professor at Peking University.