This book discusses legal reforms across Asia involving the creation of new courts over the last 20 years, and examines to what extent they have succeeded or failed. During this period there have been numerous instances of the creation of new courts in Asia. These 'new courts' are mainly specialist courts, which have a specific jurisdiction, whether that is over cases involving intellectual property disputes, bankruptcy petitions, commercial contracts, public law adjudication, personal law issues, labour or industrial disputes. This trend has clearly intensified since the economic crisis of 1997/8 and the consequent emphasis on good governance and commercial dispute resolution. The justification of this trend towards 'judicialization' has been that implementation of Western-style rule of law is necessary for the development of the market economy, democratization, good governance and the upholding of human rights.Adopting an explicitly comparative perspective, and contrasting the experiences of important Asian states including China, Japan, Korea, Malaysia and Indonesia, this book considers critical questions including: why has the 'new-court model' been adopted, and why do international development agencies and nation-states tend to favour it; what difficulties have the new courts encountered; how have the new courts performed; and, what are the broader implications of the trend towards the adoption of judicial solutions to economic, social and political problems. In addition, it considers critics of court building who allege that it is a Western agenda that does not serve local interests, and that the emphasis on judicialization marginalises alternative local and traditional modes of dispute resolution. This book will not only be of interest to legal scholars and practitioners, but also to development specialists, economists and political scientists.