Mindy Chen-Wishart was Professor of the Law of Contract and Dean of Law at Oxford University, Fellow of Merton College until September 2023. She has joined the National University of Singapore full time after many years as a fractional appointment. Mindy is also an Honourary Professor at Otago University and was awarded an Honourary Doctorate in 2023. She has also taught in China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, New Zealand, Thailand, and Germany. She was born in Taiwan and lived in NZ for 21 years. She will remain a Visiting and Emeritus Professor at Oxford, and an Emeritus Fellow at Merton College. Mindy will receive the Conference’s Lifetime Achievement Award at KCON in July 2024 (KCON is the largest annual international academic conference dedicated to contract and commercial law). Mindy has delivered many international keynote lectures around the world, is a respected teacher, and a leader in legal education, and diversity and inclusion.
Mindy has researched in the law of restitution and taught restitution for unjust enrichment, tort law, consumer law, administrative law, and constitutional law. Her focus now is on all aspects of Contract Law:
- On doctrinal law– she is: author of Contract Law (7th ed), which is being translated into simplified Chinese and Vietnamese; an editor of Chitty on Contracts (35th ed), the ‘Bible of English contract law’; and was a member of the Advisory Group on A Restatement of the Law of Contract in English and Wales. Mindy has lectured to the Judicial College of England and Wales and the Judicial Academy in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Her work has been cited by courts in England and Wales, Canada, New Zealand, and Singapore.
- On theory– Mindy has published articles and is co-editing the Handbook on Contract Theory (37 chapters) to be published by Edward Elgar, 2024.
- On comparative law– she has published articles comparing English contract law with European and Chinese contract laws. One of her articles won the prize for best annual article of the International and Comparative Law Quarterly (ICLQ). Mindy is leading a six-book project on the contract laws of 14 Asian jurisdictions (China, Japan, Korea, India, Hong Kong, Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, Myanmar, Taiwan, Thailand and the Philippines). The project establishes a new avenue of cooperation for Asian contract law specialists, and a new way to communicate with the rest of the world. She is also one of the founders of OPAL, the Oxford Programme on Asian Laws https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/content/oxford-programme-asian-laws
Books
Mindy Chen-Wishart,
Contract Law (7th edn, Oxford University Press 2022)
Edited Books
Book Chapters
Mindy Chen-Wishart and Emma Hughes, '
Monism versus Pluralism in Unjust Enrichment' in Warren Swain and Sagi Peari (eds),
Rethinking Unjust Enrichment: History, Sociology, Doctrine, and Theory (Oxford University Press 2023) 253
Mindy Chen-Wishart and Jodi Gardner, 'Schrödinger's Lawful Act Duress: Dead or Alive?' in Edwin Peel and Rebecca Probert (eds), Shaping the Law of Obligations: Essays in Honour of Professor Ewan McKendrick KC (Oxford University Press 2023)
Mindy Chen-Wishart, 'The Agreement' in Hugh Beale (ed), Chitty on Contracts, 35th Edition (Sweet & Maxwell 2023)
Mindy Chen-Wishart, 'Duress, Undue Influence and Unconscionable Dealing' in Hugh Beale (ed), Chitty on Contracts, 35th Edition (Sweet & Maxwell 2023)
Mindy Chen-Wishart, 'Action for an Agreed Sum, Specific Performance and Injunction' in Hugh Beale (ed), Chitty on Contract, 35th Edition (Sweet & Maxwell 2023)
