Jerome Cohen [孔傑榮/柯恩] (1930–2025) was Professor Emeritus at New York University School of Law, Founder and Faculty Director Emeritus of its US-Asia Law Institute, and Adjunct Senior Fellow for Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations.

This website preserves his lifelong work on Asia and law as a public resource and as a tribute to his life as scholar, teacher, mentor, and advocate.

Tributes to Jerry from former students, colleagues, and friends around the world, collected by the U.S.-Asia Law Institute

Eastward, Westward

A Life in Law

Few Americans have done more than Jerome A. Cohen to advance the rule of law in East Asia. The founder of the study of Chinese law in the United States and a tireless advocate for human rights, Cohen has been a scholar, teacher, lawyer, and activist for more than sixty years. Moving among the United States, China, and Taiwan, he has encouraged legal reforms, promoted economic cooperation, mentored law students—including a future president of Taiwan—and brokered international crises.

In this compelling, conversational memoir, Cohen recounts a dramatic life of striving for a better world from Washington, DC, to Beijing, offering vital first-hand insights from the study and practice of Sino-American relations. In the early 1960s, when Americans were not permitted to enter China, he met with émigrés in Hong Kong and interviewed them on Chinese criminal procedure. After economic reform under Deng Xiaoping, Cohen’s knowledge of Chinese law took on a new importance as foreign companies began to pursue business opportunities. Helping China develop and reconstruct its legal system, he made an influential case for the roles of Western law and lawyers. Cohen helped break political barriers in both China and Taiwan, and he was instrumental in securing the release of political prisoners in several countries. Sharing these experiences and many others, this book tells the full story of an unparalleled career bridging East and West.

Published by Columbia University Press