Author
Dr Ruiping Ye
Organisation/Institution
Victoria University of Wellington
Country
NEW ZEALAND
Panel
Law and Society
Title
Legal Culture and Pandemic Management: A Comparative Analysis
Abstract
This paper examinates how the COVID responses have revealed the societies we live in from the perspective of legal culture. Legal culture is a combination and interplay of legislation, the infrastructure and behaviour of legal institutions, and the behaviour and conceptions of the general population. This paper compares the COVID-19 responses of four selected jurisdictions from the perspectives of legislative frameworks for pandemic responses, institutional infrastructure and responses, and public behaviour. The four jurisdictions are mainland China, New Zealand, Germany and Taiwan. They bear similarities and differences in terms of the legal system, political system, cultural tradition and geographical features. This article demonstrates how formal law and legal institutions on the one hand, and the underlying culture of a society on the other, both influenced the responses to a global pandemic and national emergency like COVID. It further argues that the development of the rule of law at the institutional level significantly affects the legal consciousness of the public.
Biography
Dr Ruiping Ye researches in the areas of comparative law, Chinese legal system, law and culture, land law and aboriginal land tenure, and has published extensively on these topics. Her book, The Colonisation and Settlement of Taiwan, 1684-1945: Land Tenure, Law and Qing and Japanese Policies (Routledge, 2018), examines the relationship between legal system, colonial policies and aboriginal land tenure changes from a comparative law perspective. Dr Ye has been admitted as a Barrister and Solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand and was qualified to practise law in China.
