Recent Publications by Roda Mushkat

"Political Economy of Regulating Competition in a Challenged Global Metropolis: The Hong Kong Blueprint"
Miron Mushkat & Roda Mushkat
North Carolina Journal of International Law & Commercial Regulation

Vol. 40, Issue 22, Winter 2015, pp 293-354

Introduction (excerpt): The original East Asia developmental states have now matured and have joined the ranks of industrial countries.46 Interest appears to have shifted to the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) and their successors.47 This group does not constitute a homogeneous category, which is a disadvantage from a conceptual and policy perspective. Nevertheless, certain common features may be discerned. The countries that are currently attracting attention had long been at the interventionist end of the strategic continuum, but are presently liberalizing, albeit in a controlled fashion.48 They are also almost invariably large. An inference may be drawn that an institutional cocktail, featuring some optimal blend of spontaneous bottom-up and thoughtful top-down elements, may provide the ideal policy formula for sustaining a healthy economic expansion, and that size too greatly matters in this respect. 

     Without necessarily challenging the broad thrust of that argument, it is appropriate to note that it does not properly reflect the diversity of economic experience. Small countries, frequently less interventionist and more open than their large counterparts, often consistently outpace the titans. 49 Hong Kong, a former British colony and, since 1997, a special administrative region (HKSAR) of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), is a case in point. Despite its stellar economic record and distinct institutional features, it occupies a rather modest place in the literature on economic development and growth (the equally vibrant yet differently structured city-state of Singapore is also marginalized).50 The purpose of this paper is to put Hong Kong’s economic architecture back in the spotlight by describing and assessing its regulation of competition, a process that has recently culminated in the introduction of legislation to address the issue. However, the territory’s relevant economic and political characteristics must be outlined first. 

     Another preliminary step taken is an evaluation of Hong Kong’s overall regulatory regime. Specific measures taken to correct market failure need to be placed in a broad economic and political context because such contexts are key determinants of the particular nature of the measures, although this is not a one-way relationship. However, such mechanisms are often best understood as a component of a wider regulatory system, which may be tightly or loosely integrated, but which is seldom devoid of any internal coherence. Indeed, the conclusion drawn here is that the effectiveness of the emerging framework for regulating competition in Hong Kong must be judged in light of its fit with the economic, political, and overall micro-level governance regime in which it is embedded.... Click here to download the full article.  

"A New Turning Point in the Study of International Legal Compliance, in China and Elsewhere"
Hong Kong Law Journal
Vol. 45, Part 1 of 2015, pp 157-188

Abstract:Scholarly exploration of rule conformity in the global arena is a fast-growing and increasingly sophisticated enterprise which lies at the epicentre of positive international legal theory, a relatively young but burgeoning field of scientific inquiry, with a salient explanatory dimension and a distinct multidisciplinary, perhaps even interdisciplinary, orientation. Notwithstanding the scope, diversity and progress observed in this analytical domain, it is not devoid of flaws and gaps. Periodically, research is produced that shifts the whole edifice to a markedly higher plateau. The book under review arguably falls into this category by virtue of making a number of significant contributions to knowledge, the most notable being the author’s genuine and largely successful effort to combine and integrate insights derived from seemingly competing, but in fact often complementary, schools of thought.

     Professor Mushkat is Honorary Professor in the Faculty of Law and also currently Professor of International Law, Hopkins-Nanjing Centre, Paul H. Nitze School ofAdvanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, Nanjing, China.  Some of her recent publications are listed below:

• Roda Mushkat, 'Conceptions of Sovereignty and Identity Economics: A Chinese-Based Exploration' (2014) 4 International Journal of Public Law and Policy 245-278
• Roda Mushkat, 'Crucial Issues and Divergent Pathways in Empirical International Legal Research - Pivotal Questions Stemming from the Complexities of the Delicate Hong Kong-China Relationship' (2014) 44 Hong Kong Law Journal 231-246
• Roda Mushkat, 'Constructivist Constructions of International Environmental Governance Regimes - The Southeast Asia Context' (2014) 15 Melbourne Journal of International Law 252-270
• Roda Mushkat, 'The Anatomy of China's Human Rights Regime: A Behaviorally-Underpinned Analytical and Evaluative Account' (2014) 8 Vienna Journal of International Constitutional Law 131-185 (2014) 
• Roda Mushkat, 'Assessing a Key Facet of the Rule of Law in Post-1997 Hong Kong' (2014) 2 Journal of International and Comparative Law 313-326