The TU-CALS Symposium serves as an academic platform for sustained intellectual exchange on the development and diversity of Asian laws and legal systems. By bringing together established and emerging scholars from across the region and beyond, it seeks to encourage comparative and cross-jurisdictional inquiry, facilitate the exchange of diverse perspectives, and foster deeper engagement with questions of enduring importance to Asian legal systems. In doing so, the Symposium aims to contribute to the advancement of Asian legal scholarship and strengthen scholarly networks across jurisdictions, disciplines and generations.

Building on the inaugural TU-CALS Symposium 2026 on Civil and Common Law Traditions in Asia: Convergence, Divergence and Co-existence, the TU-CALS Symposium 2027 (“Symposium”) marks the second edition of this collaborative academic initiative between Thammasat University Faculty of Law and the Centre for Asian Legal Studies at the Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore. The Symposium will be held in person on 10–11 June 2027 at Thammasat University in Bangkok, Thailand.

The 2027 Symposium casts the spotlight on legal certainty in Asian contexts. Asian legal systems reflect a rich diversity of indigenous, customary, religious, socialist and Western legal traditions, many of which have interacted and evolved alongside one another over decades or even centuries. This complex legal landscape raises important questions about how such diversity shapes our understanding of legal certainty, predictability and reliability across different Asian jurisdictions.

Conventional understandings of legal certainty often emphasise the importance of consistent and predictable laws in supporting economic activity, protecting individual rights and promoting social welfare. Yet, these assumptions may not operate uniformly across Asia. Different jurisdictions may understand and experience legal certainty in distinct ways, shaped by their particular histories, legal traditions and institutional arrangements. Processes such as cross-fertilisation, coerced adoption, legal transplantation and, more recently, regulatory experimentation may further influence the degree and forms of certainty that particular legal systems seek to provide.

Against this background, the Symposium explores how legal certainty is understood and negotiated across Asian jurisdictions. It considers not only how much certainty different legal systems provide, but also how much uncertainty they are prepared to accommodate, and whether there may be contexts in which flexibility, discretion or experimentation is preferable to rigid legal predictability. Through these discussions, the Symposium seeks to encourage a broader understanding of legal certainty as a concept whose meaning and value may vary across Asia.