Jurisprudence
    Since our Reform and Opening-up, eye-catching achievements have been made in the scientific research and teaching of jurisprudence in Jilin University. The idea of right-orientation, the research on basic categories in legal science, the research on trends of thought in western legal philosophy, the series of theoretically original ideas on the spirit of modern law, the rule of law, property right, contract and procedures, etc. have established themselves as the basic framework of the current system of China’s legal science. The assertion of right-orientation initiated a grand debate and discussion among legal scholars in the 1980s and the 1990s. This debate was applauded by overseas scholars as “the first academic dialogue among China’s legal scholars using their own language” and it had a far-reaching effect on the direction of the development of China’s legal theory research. The teaching achievement of the discipline of Jilin University has also been widely recognized among scholars of law and among China’s educators as a whole. The series of textbooks of jurisprudence edited by Prof. Zhang Wenxian of Jilin University——from the earliest Basic Theory of Legal Science 1984 to General Theory of Law 1989 covering the Northeast of China, and still later to Jurisprudence 1999, 2003, 2007, the national key textbook of the 9th, 10th and 11th Five-Year Plans and Jurisprudence: Marxist Theory, Methods and points of Law 1993, 2003——have been developed into a complete and multilayered textbook system covering undergraduate education, adult education as well as graduate education.

Western Legal Philosophy
   Our research on western legal philosophy started comparatively early and prominent achievements have also been made. As early as 1979, we invited the well-known American legal philosopher Julius Cohen to preside over a lecture, focusing on the introduction to front topics and important academic contentions in western legal philosophy. Prof. Zhang Wenxian and Prof. Deng Zhenglai are distinguished scholars in western legal philosophy research in China. Prof. Zhang’s research on western legal philosophy started from the year 1978 and he has visited America and Europe many times for contemporary western legal philosophy research, has published three monographs, namely Contemporary Western Legal Philosophy, Contemporary Trends of Thought in Western Legal Science and Studies on the Trends of Thought of Western Legal Philosophy in the 20th Century, and has presided over the translation of many well-known works like The Concept of Law, Principles of Law, etc. Prof. Deng started his research on and translation of western legal philosophy in the mid 1980s. His translations include Jurisprudence: the Philosophy and Method of the Law, Interpretation of Legal History, The Constitution of Liberty, Jurisprudence, etc. and his monographs comprise On Hayekian Legal Philosophy, Rule, Order and Ignorance: On Hayekian Liberalism, etc. All these monographs and translations enjoy great influence home and abroad and are widely quoted by Chinese scholars.

Legal Sociology
  Our research on legal sociology started early and took pride in the series of achievements. The year 1991 witnessed the completion by the staff of the department of legal theory of the Ph.D. program funded by the State Education Commission and the publication of the monograph Legal Sociology. Meanwhile, many research papers on legal sociology have been published on Chinese Journal of Law, Sociological Research, etc. and our staff members have organized or participated in the organization of four seminars on legal sociology. Prof. Ma Xinfu has presided and completed two research programs of the Ministry of Education and published two distinctive monographs on legal sociology. Prof. Yao Jianzong and Prof. Huang Wenyi have respectively published their monographs on legal sociology with as their topic law and development. At present, the main research programs in this direction consist of “the methodological transition of contemporary legal sociology in America” and “people orientation and the development of law”.

Legal Cultures Studies
    Jilin University has always played a leading role in terms of the basic theoretical research of legal cultures, comparative study of Chinese and western legal cultures, Chinese traditional legal culture studies, etc. and it has as its features: first, we take pride in our scholars from many areas of studies, such as jurisprudence, legal history, legal sociology, comparative law studies, etc. and can perform comprehensive and multilayered studies from different perspectives; second, in terms of research on our traditional legal culture, we have been dwelling on established phyla and familiar phyla, on the legal conception and legal consciousness reflected in the civil conventions and customs and in popular mentality, as well as on the special categories or vocabularies in traditional culture sphere and their effect on real life; third, we have devoted our attention to many important research projects, including National Social Science Foundation programs like “studies of contemporary Japanese law”, “on the mutuality of multiple cultures against the background of globalization”, China Social Science Foundation programs including “legal culture and legal construction”, project supported by the Trans-Century Training Program Foundation for the Talents by the Ministry of Education “positive research on China’s traditional culture”, and key grand program from Key Research Institute of Humanities and Social Science in Universities approved by the Ministry of Education consisting of “comparative studies on Chinese and western legal cultures”, etc.

Legal Economics
    Jilin University is the first to introduce western legal economics into mainland China and has laid a solid foundation for the further development of it in China. As early as 1985, Prof. Zhang Wenxian introduced American economic analysis of law and the neo-liberal economics which is the theoretical foundation of the former. On the Beijing conference of the young and middle-aged scholars of law and economics in Feb. 1988, Prof. Zhang, as the chief speaker of the conference, made a comprehensive introduction to and comment on economic analysis of law and expounded the necessity and basic approach of the development of legal economics in China, arousing great reaction and echo among legal and economic circles. Henceforth, in order to promote our research on legal economics, we invited scholars of economics into our research team and cooperated in a series of research programs: “jurisprudential research on modern enterprise system”, “economic globalization and the trend of China’s law development”, “jurisprudential foundation of property rights”, etc.

Human Rights Theories and Human Rights Law
   Since the mid 1980s, human rights have become a major research topic among our teaching and research staff as they dwell on studies of rights. With the 1990s as a starting point, we have performed profound researches on human rights and have achieved a series of important research results. At present, we not only view human rights from the perspective of law, we also put them against their social backgrounds. With the political, economic, cultural, historical and social environment as a backdrop, we discuss their philosophical and historical foundations and argue for the justification of their existence, thus providing them with solid theoretical foundation from legally normative and institutional perspectives. In terms of the normative and institutional respects of international human rights law and international human rights, efforts have been made to discuss and explore the effective guarantee mechanism and practical way of realization of them via the interpretation and analysis of international human rights documents and the resulting international human rights mechanism, as well as the global and regional human rights systems and relevant practices. Among the works on human rights that enjoy prestige home and abroad are On the Subjects of Human Rights and Subjective Human Rights by Prof. Zhang Wenxian, Ideological and Legal Standards of Human Rights by Prof. Zheng Chengliang and Prof. Xu Weidong, and researches done by Prof. Sun Shiyan on international human rights.

Comparative Law
   Comparative law has always been an important branch in the disciplines of legal theories in Jilin University and it has two outstanding features: first, it started relatively early; and second, its development has been closely interrelated with teaching and the research achievement was in turn employed for the promotion of teaching. It is for this very consideration that a research and teaching team headed by Prof. Li Fang was organized. A series of textbooks and monographs have been published among which are Textbook on Comparative Law by Prof. Li Fang, General Introduction to Comparative Law by Prof. Yang Yafei and Comparative Law: Theory and Application by Prof. Huang Wenyi. Under the guidance of the general pandect of comparative law, researches on comparative criminal law, comparative civil and business law and other branches of comparative law have also been performed and accordingly a number of relevant achievements have been made.

Science of Legislative and Judicial Sciences
  It has long been a tradition for researchers of this discipline to participate in the legislation, administration and judicature of national, provincial and municipal levels and to act as consultants for central legislature and judicature as well as for local People’s Congress Councils and the People’s Governments. At the same time, we have also been inviting excellent practitioners into our research programs and work as co-researchers. Jilin University is among the earliest universities to teach the course of legislative science and set judicial science as a research direction. We have finished the program of Humanities and Social Science by the Ministry of Education “on the legal sociology of legislation mechanism”, the key grand program of Humanities and Social Science by the Ministry of Education during the Ninth Five-year Plan “towards the era of the rule of law: to strike a balance between public power and private rights”, the important program from Key Research Institute of Humanities and Social Science in Universities approved by the Ministry of Education “on the jurisprudence of judicature and the reform of the judicatory system in contemporary China”, and the program consigned by Ministry of Justice “on the system of the state-sponsored unified judicial test”. Our publications in this direction comprise On Legislation, Justice Inside the Law, Science of Legislation, etc.