Jerome Cohen, a pioneering scholar of Chinese law who shaped global debates on the country’s legal system, trade, and human rights for over six decades, has died at 95.
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Cohen, who died on Monday, was professor emeritus at New York University’s School of Law and the founder of its US-Asia Law Institute, as well as a senior fellow for Asia studies at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank.
The author and editor of over a dozen books and dozens of journal articles, Cohen began his career in Chinese law in 1960, at age 30, and was the first American to practice law in the country under Communist rule. His writings on Chinese criminal procedure and China’s interactions with international law are considered groundbreaking and remain widely read by legal scholars. He also built a reputation as both an advocate for Chinese dissidents and a proponent of continued engagement with Beijing.
“I wanted to be a pioneer. I wanted to do something that not 20 other law professors were doing,” Cohen said in March at an event at the National Committee on US-China Relations marking the release of his memoir, Eastward, Westward: A Life in Law.
Thomas Kellogg, Executive Director of the Center for Asian Law at Georgetown University and a graduate of Harvard Law School, where Cohen introduced the teaching of Asian law, recalled the China scholar’s towering impact.
“Jerry was a true giant in the field, and he influenced us all,” Kellogg said.