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The Washington Consensus (“WC”), which dominated the development world for over two decades, has been called into question on both theoretical and empirical grounds.  Those countries that adhered most closely to the it have failed to achieve sustained growth, while the East Asian ‘tigers’ that rejected it and followed their own development path achieved remarkable growth.  Many attributed the success of the early East Asian tigers to the East Asian Model, and the more recent success of China to the China Model or Beijing Consensus (“BC”).  However, the lost decade in Japan, the Global Financial Crisis (“GFC”) and growing concerns that China may be caught in the dreaded “middle-income trap” have called into question the viability of the East Asian Model and its more specific China variants.

Randall Peerenboom is a law professor at La Trobe University and an associate fellow of the Oxford University Center for Socio-Legal Studies. He was a professor at UCLA Law School from 1998 to 2007 and director of the Oxford Foundation for Law, Justice and Society Rule of Law in China Programme. He has been a consultant to the Asian Development Bank, Ford Foundation, EU-China, UNDP and other international organizations on legal reforms and rule of law in China and Asia, and is the Co-Editor in Chief of The Hague Journal of Rule of Law. He is also a CIETAC arbitrator, and frequently serves as expert witness on PRC legal issues.  His recent sole-authored and edited books include Judicial Independence in China (2010); Regulation in Asia (2009); China Modernizes: Threat to the West or Model for the Rest? (2007); Human Rights in Asia (2006); Asian Discourses of Rule of Law (2004); and China’s Long March toward Rule of Law (2002).

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