Welcome to HKU Law's Inaugural Global Academic Fellows

Welcome to Dr Yu-Jie Chen, Dr Anna Dziedzic, and Dr Alexander Ezenagu, our first batch of Global Academic Fellows.  The fellows were selected following a global competition of accomplished postdoctoral law applicants. The inaugural group will further enrich the Faculty of Law's research areas of strength in human rights law, constitutional law, and financial law.

Dr Yu-Jie Chen

   Prior to joining HKU, Dr Yu-Jie Chen was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Institutum Iurisprudentiae of Academia Sinica in Taiwan. Dr Chen received her JSD and LLM degrees from New York University School of Law. She also holds an LLM and LLB from National Chengchi University in Taiwan. She has had extensive experience as a research scholar at the US-Asia Law Institute, NYU School of Law. Prior to that, she served as a researcher and advocate for the non-governmental organization Human Rights in China. She earlier practiced in the Taipei-based international law firm Lee and Li. Dr Chen's research focuses on human rights issues in China, Taiwan and cross-strait relations.

   Dr Chen's recent scholarship includes “China’s Challenge to the International Human Rights Regime,” “Human Rights in the Chinese Administration of Justice,” “Localizing Human Rights Treaty Monitoring: Case Study of Taiwan as a Non-UN Member State,” “Isolated but Not Oblivious: Taiwan’s Acceptance of the Two Major Human Rights Covenants,” “China-Taiwan Relations Re-examined: the ‘1992 Consensus’ and Cross-strait Agreements” (with Jerome A. Cohen), “China-Taiwan Repatriation of Criminal Suspects: Room for Human Rights?” (with Jerome A. Cohen), “Freedom from Arbitrary Detention in Asia: Lessons from China, Taiwan and Hong Kong” (with Jerome A. Cohen), “‘Rule of Trust’: Powers and Perils of China’s Social Credit Megaproject” (with Ching-fu Lin & Han-wei Liu), “Beyond State v Loomis: Artificial Intelligence, Government Algorithmization and Accountability” (with Han-wei Liu & Ching-fu Lin), and “Transitional Justice in Taiwan: Changes and Challenges” (with Nien-chung Chang Liao).

Dr Anna Dziedzic

    Dr Anna Dziedzic researches in the field of comparative constitutional law, with a particular focus on judges and judiciaries and constitutional change. She completed her PhD at Melbourne Law School in 2019, with a doctoral thesis examining the use of foreign judges on courts of constitutional jurisdiction in Pacific island states. She will use the Global Academic Fellowship at HKU Faculty of Law to undertake broader comparative research into foreign judges and the significance of nationality to judicial office.

     Dr Dziedzic was awarded an MA in Human Rights from University College London in 2011, and first class honours degrees in Arts and Law and the University Medal in English Literature from the Australian National University in 2004. Prior to undertaking post-graduate study, Dr Dziedzic  worked at the Australian Law Reform Commission, the Australian Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, as an Associate to a Justice of the Federal Court of Australia and a volunteer legal analyst at the Samoa Law Reform Commission.

     Dr Dziedzic’s academic publications include work on constitutional law and constitution making in Pacific island states, Australian constitutional law, Indigenous constitutions, federalism, parliamentary sovereignty, and judges and judiciaries. She has also undertaken consultancies on various issues including constitutional implementation, gender and constitutions, and citizenship.  She is a co-convenor of the Constitution Transformation Network at Melbourne Law School, a network that brings scholars and practitioners together to explore the dynamics and challenges of change in constitutional law, theory and practice across the globe. 

Dr. Alexander Ezenagu

     Dr Alexander Ezenagu researches on the intersections of trade, investment, tax and development. He is also designing a taught course on the governance of development from a developing country perspective. 

     Dr Ezenagu obtained his doctorate degree from McGill University, Canada, in International Tax Law. His doctorate dissertation studied the alternatives to the arm’s length principle of income allocation among related entities and the adoption and application of unitary taxation approach for allocating income among entities within a multinational group. Dr Ezenagu is a graduate of the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, where he obtained a Master of Law degree (LLM) in Commercial Law. 

      Dr Ezenagu’s current research focuses on the relationship between taxation and economic development, as well as the role of government and non-government institutions and actors in the creation of tax policies and rules. He writes on the right to tax by countries and how such taxing rights should be allocated. He also researches and writes on illicit financial flows out of developing countries and ways to curb them. 

    The HKU Faculty of Law launched the Global Academic Fellows Programme in 2018 under the directorship of Dr Jed Kroncke, assisted by Ms Ivy Lai.  The aim of this postdoctoral law programme is to provide a highly stimulating research environment for the most promising legal academics to continue and develop their internationally excellent research.