Yonsei University College of Law professor Chaihark Hahm will deliver the 2013 Henry Morris Lecture in International and Comparative Law at noon on Tuesday, October 22, 2013 in the Governor Richard B. Ogilvie Auditorium at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law. The lecture is free and open to the public. Registration is not required.

Hahm will address the topic “Which People? Whose Constitution? A Comparative Look at Constitutional Founding in Korea and Japan.” In his lecture, he will examine the process of constitutional founding in South Korea and Japan after World War II. Hahm will revisit a number of legal and political issues that were hotly contested by the drafters at the time. In addition, he will also highlight a more general theoretical problem that confronted efforts to establish democratic constitutional orders for the first time.

Hahm teaches courses in constitutional history at Yonsei University College of Law in Seoul, South Korea. In addition to his interests in law, he maintains a deep interest in theology and biblical interpretation, and holds an M.A. in religion from Yale Divinity School. Hahm also earned an LL.B. from Seoul National University, a J.D. from Columbia Law School, an LL.M. from Yale, and an S.J.D. from Harvard.

IIT Chicago-Kent’s Henry C. Morris Lecture in International and Comparative Law brings speakers from around the world to discuss current developments in international law. The Morris Lecture was endowed by Henry Crittenden Morris (1863–1948), an 1889 graduate of the law school.

A diplomat and international lawyer, Morris served as the United States Consul in Ghent, Belgium, and as secretary to Chief Justice Fuller at the Permanent International Court of The Hague. Morris’s diplomatic service overseas spanned the 25 years before the outbreak of the First World War. He was a member of the board of the Library of International Relations, the collection of international and comparative law materials that is now housed at IIT Chicago-Kent.