Festschrift in Honor of Jerome Alan Cohen JOURNAL OF CHINESE LAW VOL. 7 SPRING 1993 NO. 1 Festschrift in Honor of Jerome Alan Cohen R. RANDLE EDWARDS The articles by Jarnie Horsley and William Afford initiate a series to be published in this and subsequent issues of the Journal of Chinese Law to celebrate Jerome Cohen's unique role in fostering American scholarship on Chinese law. Authored by former students and academic associates, the articles will cover the spectrum from Chinese legal history to aspects of the contemporary PRC legal process. The complete series will be published separately in a festschrift volume dedicated to Cohen. Editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal and clerk to Chief Justice Earl Warren and Justice Felix Frankfiurter, in the early 1960's Cohen recognized the potential importance of law in China's development and in U.S.-China relations. As director of East Asian Legal Studies at Harvard Law School from 1964 to 1981, Cohen authored pioneering books and scores of influential articles on the PRC criminal process and China's practice of international law. In addition, he trained numerous lawyers and legal scholars who are now playing key roles in fostering Chinese-American understanding and cooperation. When Jerry Cohen decided to leave the easy and well-marked trail of a tenured law professor teaching "bread and butter" courses at a leading law school to venture into the unknown and dangerous territory of Maoist jurisprudence, his friends and colleagues all thought he had lost his mind. Indeed, at the time he began teaching about PRC law in the early 1960's even the Chinese admitted there was very little law or legal process for foreigners - or Chinese, for that matter - to study. Yet Cohen's book on the PRC criminal process and his many pioneering articles revealed to the world a far more developed legal process than most had imagined. Cohen's scholarship also has made very clear how JOURNAL OF CHINESE LAW indispensable knowledge of China's legal traditions is for anyone wishing to understand contemporary Chinese law and to anticipate the pace and direction of its future development. In addition to his pioneering work on Chinese law, Jerry Cohen has inspired an entire generation of individuals devoted to careers in Asia- related human rights work as well as in teaching and research in the field of Chinese law. In his own life, he has modelled commitment to the ideals of human rights and public service, exerting significant influence on China-related human rights literature and on the constructive development of U.S.-China relations. Imbued with inexhaustible amounts of energy as well as great talent and vision, Jerry Cohen has consistently modelled with his own actions - like a true Confucian jun-zi - the principles he believes should guide American policy and scholarship relating to China. The richness of the articles comprising the Cohenfestschrift volume offers convincing testimony to the incomparable contribution made by Jerry Cohen to the fields of Chinese law and U.S.-China relations.