The editors first and foremost would like to thank the authors of this volume for the
enriching journey across East Asian and Western intellectual traditions of political,
moral, and legal thought on which we embarked together. The project has been a
true adventure.
We have had the privilege of meeting twice, in Amsterdam and Hong Kong, to
exchange and examine rule of law ideas across different traditions of international
intellectual history. At these seminars, initial versions of the chapters in this volume
were presented and discussed. Not all participants to these seminars have authored a
chapter in this volume, but all have contributed significantly to the coming about of
this volume. We are grateful to Chad Hansen, James Tracy, Wang Zhong Jiang, Yang
Xiaodong, YI Ping, and in particular to Heinhard Steiger, who has been such a committed, knowledgeable, and warm supporter of this project throughout the years.
The editors are grateful to the Amsterdam Center for International Law of the
University of Amsterdam’s School of Law, the Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation of
Taiwan, the Amsterdam law firm Diepen van der Kroef, the Dutch Royal Academy
of Sciences, the Hong Kong University’s School of Law, and the Hong Kong
Chamber of Commerce in the Netherlands for making these seminars possible. We
are grateful also to our home institutions—the University of Amsterdam and Hong
Kong University—for their stimulating and intellectual support of the project