HKU Law Welcomes Two New Assistant Professors

HKU Law warmly welcomes two new socio-legal scholars who will explore questions concerning the Chinese judiciary, Chinese environmental policies, and Chinese investments in Africa and other places in the coming years.

Dr Benjamin Chen is an interdisciplinary legal researcher interested in regulatory and judicial institutions. He joins us from the National University of Singapore. His current research examines the scope for consequentialist reasoning in law, the diffusion of policy through the courts, and the impact of artificial intelligence on justice and its administration. Benjamin graduated with a JD from the University of California, Berkeley in 2017 where he also received his PhD in Jurisprudence and Social Policy. In addition to his legal qualifications in the State of California, Benjamin holds a MA in Philosophy from University College London, a MSc in Applied Mathematics from the Ecole Polytechnique, and a BA in Economics from the University of Chicago. He was previously a postdoctoral research scholar and lecturer-in-law at Columbia University and served as a judicial law clerk on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He has several interesting new articles on regulatory trade-offs, judicial legitimation in China, and partisan voting on the California Supreme Court pending publication in US law journals.  Benjamin will be teaching LLB Contract Law in his first year.

     Dr Ying Xia is a graduate of Harvard Law School, where she completed her LLM and SJD studies. Her research seeks to weave everyday life experience into broader theories about the law, governance, and society, with a particular focus on environmental reform in China and the role of China in globalization. During her doctoral studies under the supervision of Professor William Alford, Ying conducted fieldwork in several East African countries, exploring the impact and regulatory challenge of Chinese investment in the region. Ying also holds a Bachelor of Law and Bachelor of Economics from Peking University.  Ying's research areas include environmental law, international law, and law and public policy, with a focus on experience from developing countries.  Ying will be teaching LLB Introduction to Chinese Law and other specialist Chinese law courses.