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NUS and Leading Chinese University To Offer Masters Degree In International Business Law in Shanghai, China

The Faculty of Law at the National University of Singapore (NUS) and the East China University of Politics and Law (ECUPL), one of China 's top law schools, will jointly launch a specialist Masters of Law (LL.M.) degree in International Business Law in Shanghai in July 2005. Building on the expanding links between Singapore and the People's Republic of China , t his new programme signifies another innovative step towards NUS Law Faculty's vision of becoming a leading global law school.

The specialist degree in International Business Law is the first overseas degree programme and the fifth specialist LLM degree that will be offered by the NUS Faculty of Law. Specialist degrees currently offered by the NUS Law Faculty are in Corporate and Financial Services Law, Intellectual Property and Technology Law, International and Comparative Law, and Chinese Law .

With increasing globalization, legal education around the world is grappling with the issue of how to transform what has traditionally been a ‘domestic' discipline to one that is also globally oriented. The NUS Faculty of Law, widely regarded as Asia 's best law school and one of the best law schools internationally, has been at the forefront of curriculum developments to make legal education more global in orientation while at the same time remaining faithful to its mission of training the Singapore lawyers of the future.

About the programme

The new Master's programme, which will be launched in July 2005, will be taught in English. Applications will be open until 31 January 2005 . The Faculty of Law plans to have around 40 students for its first intake.

Students enrolled in the programme will spend six weeks at NUS where they will take one course, and spend the rest of the time in Shanghai at premises set aside for the NUS Faculty of Law within ECUPL's campus. The one-year LLM coursework degree will offer courses in the Common Law of Obligations, Comparative Corporations Law, International and Comparative Law of Sale, International Commercial Arbitration, International Banking Law, Cross-Border Transactions and Transnational Commercial Law, among others. The students will be able to study these courses under the guidance of leading faculty members from NUS and ECUPL, and from visiting professors elsewhere. Students who successfully complete the degree requirements will obtain an LLM degree conferred by NUS.

With premises in Shanghai , the NUS Faculty of Law will be able to offer other international students the option of spending a semester in Singapore and a semester in Shanghai , thereby potentially making the Faculty of Law's existing LLM programmes even more desirable to international students. It will also make it easier for its undergraduate law students to spend a semester on exchange in Shanghai .

Associate Professor Tan Cheng Han , S.C, Dean of the NUS Faculty of Law said, “I am absolutely delighted and grateful to the Shanghai Municipal Government that NUS' and ECUPL's application to offer this new programme in Shanghai has been approved. I would also like to thank the Chinese Embassy in Singapore for their assistance in the application process. We have tried to put together a truly innovative and exciting programme that will benefit every law student and practitioner who is interested in the growing field of international business law. At the same time, the approval from the Chinese authorities is a further validation of the high reputation the NUS law school enjoys both within and outside Asia as China regularly receives a large number of applications involving foreign educational initiatives.”

NUS and ECUPL are both founding members of the prestigious NUS-based Asian Law Institute (ASLI) which was set up in March 2003 and which brings together 11 of the leading law schools in Asia for collaborative projects on Asian law. The other law schools that make up ASLI are the Faculty of Law, Chulalongkorn University (Bangkok); Faculty of Law, University of Indonesia (Jakarta); Ahmad Ibrahim Kulliyyah of Laws, International Islamic University of Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur); Faculty of Law, Kyushu University (Fukuoka); National Law School of India University (Bangalore); College of Law, National Taiwan University (Taipei); Peking University Law School (Beijing); College of Law, Seoul National University (Seoul); and the College of Law, University of the Philippines (Manila).