HAO JIANG

HAO JIANG

Courses a.y. 2024/2025

Biographical note

I am an assistant professor of comparative private law. I have written on topics in contract theory, American, Chinese and European business and private law. Prior to joining Bocconi, I taught at Tulane Law School, City University of Hong Kong, visited Paris II and Trieste and conducted post-doctoral research at Max Planck Institute. I am a member of the New York State Bar and European Law Institute. I am the author and editor of two books published by Cambridge Press and one by Edward Elgar. My co-authored book, the introduction to the comparative study of private law, is considered a leading work in comparative private law. My edited volume on Chinese Civil Code was the first comprehensive scholarly take on the new Chinese Civil Code in the West in English language.  I have authored a dozen journal articles in Tulane Law Review and Michigan State Law Review, NYU Journal of Law and Business, American Journal of Jurisprudence, European Review of Private Law etc. My work has been translated into Chinese and Spanish and cited by Delaware Court of Chancery. I earned a law degree in China along with a J.D., an LL.M. and an S.J.D. from Tulane Law School. I am currently leading a comparative study of contract law with the aim of drafting a restatement of contract law for the three jurisdictions in greater China, namely, mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau. I am also developing a moral theory of contract law, contract as voluntary commutative justice, that would explain main contract doctrines across jurisdictions coherently. In spring 2024, I was a visiting fellow at Yale Law School. 

 


About

My research connects doctrines, cases, legal history and moral philosophy. I often write about the doctrinal inconsistencies in private law in America, China and continental Europe and trace them back to theoretical incoherence. 

I also use empirical methods (judge interviews, fact-based questionnaires etc.) to study the inconsistencies between doctrinal rules and their applications in reality. 

With James Gordley, I am publishing a forthcoming paper on the doctrine of causa in Tulane Law Review where we argue causa is not a necessarily needed doctrine but the modern use of causa in contemporary law preserves the idea of contract as voluntary commutative justice.  


Research interests

My main research interest is to use the Aristotelian idea of commutative justice to explain private law. I am also interested in studying the doctrinal issues arising out of the codification of Chinese civil law. 


Working papers

James Gordley, Hao Jiang
The Maze of Contemporary Contract Theory and a Way Out
American Journal of Jurisprudence (forthcoming)

Hao Jiang & Pietro Sirena (eds.)
The Making of the Chinese Civil Code: Promises and Persistent Problems
Cambridge University Press (forthcoming 2023)

Gordley,James; Jiang,Hao
The Misconceived Doctrine of Causa and the Incoherence of Contemporary Contract Law
Tulane Law Review Vol.98 (forthcoming )

Selected Publications

Jiang, Hao
The three myths of tort law in the Chinese Civil Code
THE ITALIAN LAW JOURNAL, 2021

Jiang, Hao; Chan, Peter C. H.
The rule against recovery of pure economic loss in China: a misconceived doctrine
TULANE LAW REVIEW, Forthcoming

Jiang, Hao
The making of a civil code in China: promises and perils of a new civil law
TULANE LAW REVIEW, 2021

Gordley, James; Jiang, Hao; Von Mehren, Arthur Taylor
An introduction to the comparative study of private law : readings, cases, materials
2021

Jiang, Hao
Chinese tort law: tradition, transplants and some difficulties
Comparative tort law : global perspectives, 2021

Gordley, James Russell; Jiang, Hao
Contract as voluntary commutative justice
MICHIGAN STATE LAW REVIEW, 2020

Hao Jiang
Enforcing the bargain v. materiality requirement: the future of disclosure-only settlements post-Trulia
PACE LAW REVIEW, 2018

Jiang, Hao
Freedom to mislead: the fictitious freedom to contract around fraud under Delaware law
NYU JOURNAL OF LAW & BUSINESS, 2017

Jiang, Hao
Freedom of contract under state supervision
JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL COMMERCIAL LAW, 2016

Jiang, Hao
Chinese tort law between tradition and transplants
Comparative tort law global perspectives, 2015

Jiang, Hao
Enlarged state power to declare nullity: the hidden state interest in the Chinese contract law
JOURNAL OF CIVIL LAW STUDIES, 2014

Hao Jiang; Marta Infantino
Towards a Model Sales Law in the Greater Bay Area: A Comparative Study of Contract Law in Mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau
Edward Elgar Publishing, 2024

Hao Jiang ; Pietro Sirena (eds.)
The Making of the Chinese Civil Code: Promises and Persistent Problems
Cambridge University Press, 2023

The Maze of Contemporary Contract Theory and a Way Out
68 American Journal of Jurisprudence 1-32, 2023