Follow the research activities and scholarship of the Faculty of Law, The University of Hong Kong
Friday, October 31, 2025
Anfield Tam on The Tort of Malicious Falsehood and Mental Distress Damages (Torts Law Journal)
Wednesday, October 29, 2025
Yun Zhao on International Regulatory Regime for MegaConstellations: A Path to Equitable Access to Outer Space (Air and Space Law)
Yun Zhao
Air and Space Law, Volume 50, Special Issue (2025) pp. 591 – 600
Published online: September 2025
Abstract: The deployment of mega-constellations, as a significant advancement in space technology and commercialization in the twenty-first century, calls for a comprehensive regulatory framework. This article examines the existing legal and policy landscape, identifies regulatory gaps and puts forward suggestions on how to come up with a cohesive international regulatory regime for mega-constellations to ensure the long-term sustainability of space activities. Given the difficulty of achieving a binding legal regime, a pragmatic approach should be adopted at the current stage in enacting guiding principles or concrete guidelines for the responsible deployment and operation of mega-constellations in the interim, laying a solid practical foundation for a binding regime in the future.
Monday, October 27, 2025
Jedidiah Kroncke on LPE and workplace organization (New book chapter)
Jedidiah Kroncke
in John D. Haskell(ed), Research Handbook on Law and Political Economy (2nd edition, Edward Elgar Publishing, September 2025), Chapter 33, pp. 562 - 576
Published online: September 2025
Abstract: Critical scholarship on workplace law has a long traditional of emphasizing the central role of extralegal factors in the effective realization of both individual employment rights and regimes of collective bargaining. Classic and contemporary scholarship in law and political economy builds on this awareness by emphasizing the interconnection of workplace law with other core areas of economic organization—notably antitrust and corporate law. Moreover, such scholarship also illustrates the disabling legacy of isolating workplace organization from broader debates about the necessary economic dimensions of democratic citizenship writ large. Instead, LPE approaches emphasize the social centrality of the workplace as a forum for exercising and developing democratic agency that is mutually reinforcing and energizing with formal political institutions and enfranchisement. This chapter will highlight recent scholarship which shows how an LPE perspective on workplace organization illustrates both the promise of LPE approaches for identifying the illusory nature of the public/private law divide as well as for mapping out the inter-related reforms necessary for promoting a renewed, robust vision of democratic citizenship. One key quandary explored will be how to integrate existing traditions of critical work on employment rights and collective bargaining with current interest in fundamentally reshaping the place of labor in the decision-making of economic enterprises.
Friday, October 24, 2025
James Fry and Maria Jose Alarcon on The centrality of riparian community interests in ICJ adjudication of bilateral water disputes (JERL)
James Fry and Maria Jose Alarcon
Journal of Energy & Natural Resources Law
Published online: September 2025
Abstract: The jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice consistently focuses on the ‘community of interest of riparian states’ when resolving its international water disputes, including those disputes of a bilateral nature. Contrary to the beliefs of some scholars, global community interests also do not feature in these cases. Using as its foundation a population census of all international water disputes before the ICJ, this article maps out how this court and its predecessor have handled these types of disputes. It suggests that non-global, riparian community interests prevail with these disputes.
Wednesday, October 22, 2025
Ying Xia on Guerrilla Lawyering: Mobile Resistance in China’s Environmental Public Interest Litigation (LSR)
"Guerrilla Lawyering: Mobile Resistance in China’s Environmental Public Interest Litigation"
Ying Xia
Law & Society Review, First View, pp. 1 - 27
Published online: September 2025
Abstract: This study examines the transformation of environmental public interest lawyering in China within an ever-tightening legal order, where activists confront both state suppression and co-optation. Utilizing qualitative methods, including in-depth interviews with 49 environmental lawyers and activists, participant observations, and online ethnography, the research delineates two divergent models of legal mobilization. The conventional model prioritizes compliance with state regulations, employing impact litigation and consensus-building with state institutions to drive incremental environmental reforms, often at the cost of aligning with state priorities. In contrast, guerrilla lawyering emerges as an innovative strategy, leveraging decentralized networks, experimentalist litigation, flexible funding, and diffused media tactics to sustain activism while preserving autonomy. By transforming courts into platforms for generating critical information and exposing systemic vulnerabilities, guerrilla lawyering resists assimilation into state-controlled schemes. This approach not only ensures movement survival amidst repression but also enriches theoretical understandings of legal mobilization under authoritarianism by addressing the understudied risk of co-optation. These findings illuminate the resilience and ingenuity of activists in China’s constrained environmental advocacy landscape and offer a transferable framework for resistance for social movements in other authoritarian contexts, amid the global rise of authoritarian legality.
Monday, October 20, 2025
Ryan Whalen et al on Measuring the Value of Trademark Distinctiveness: Evidence From the Market for Bordeaux Wine (JELS)
Christopher Buccafusco, Jonathan S. Masur, Ryan Whalen
Journal of Empirical Legal Studies
Published online: September 2025
Friday, October 17, 2025
Eric Ip on Planetary health ethics: A Confucian alternative (The Journal of Climate Change and Health)
Eric Ip
The Journal of Climate Change and Health, Volume 22
Published online: December 2024
Wednesday, October 15, 2025
New Issue of Hong Kong Journal of Legal Studies (Volume 18, 2024)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Ms. Olga Boltenko...i
Preface
Megan Louie and Prakritee Yonzon...iv
Rethinking Lasmos: The effect of Arbitration Clauses on Insolvency Proceedings in Hong Kong
Zhang Jiaqi...1
The Anatomy of the Six-Step Sentencing Approach for Drug Trafficking: Consolidating Herry Lane Yusuph, Lee Ming Ho, and Raman Kapusamy
Jonathan Chung Wa Ho, Justin Chan Wan...31
The next step after Sham: Why and how will civil partnerships be introduced in Hong Kong? Further, will same sex marriage be recognized in Hong Kong?
Ip Chin Victoria...65
Curbing Trademark Bullies through Compensation Liability: The Approach of Chinese Judges in the Anti-Counterfeit Bulk Lawsuits of Trademark Infringement
Junsong Feng...89
Pets in Protection Orders: A Comparative Analysis of Four Common Law Frameworks and Recommendations to Expand Hong Kong’s Animal Law Regime
Shi Tao Zhang...121
Zhang Jiaqi on Rethinking Lasmos: The effect of Arbitration Clauses on Insolvency Proceedings in Hong Kong (HKJLS)
Zhang Jiaqi (BBA(Law)&LLB)
Hong Kong Journal of Legal Studies (Volume 18, 2024), pp. 1 - 29
Jonathan Chung Wa Ho and Justin Chan Wan on The Anatomy of the Six-Step Sentencing Approach for Drug Trafficking (HKJLS)
Jonathan Chung Wa Ho and Justin Chan Wan (BSocSc (Government and Laws) and LLB)
Hong Kong Journal of Legal Studies (Volume 18, 2024), pp. 31 - 64
Ip Chin Victoria on The next step after Sham: Why and how will civil partnerships be introduced in Hong Kong? Further, will same sex marriage be recognized in Hong Kong? (HKJLS)
Ip Chin Victoria (BSocSc (Government and Laws) & LLB)
Hong Kong Journal of Legal Studies (Volume 18, 2024), pp. 65 - 87
Junsong Feng on Curbing Trademark Bullies through Compensation Liability (HKJLS)
Junsong Feng (LLM)
Hong Kong Journal of Legal Studies (Volume 18, 2024), pp. 89 - 120
Shi Tao Zhang on Pets in Protection Orders: A Comparative Analysis of Four Common Law Frameworks and Recommendations to Expand Hong Kong’s Animal Law Regime (JKJLS)
Shi Tao Zhang (Exchange Student)
Hong Kong Journal of Legal Studies (Volume 18, 2024), pp. 121 - 147
Monday, October 13, 2025
Yun Zhao and Mingyan Nie on Creating a lunar-centric legal regime to preserve peaceful and sustainable uses of cislunar space: Proposing initial measures (Acta Astronautica)
Mingyan Nie, Yun Zhao
Acta Astronautica, Volume 236, pp. 856 - 868
Published online: July 2025
Friday, October 10, 2025
Lusina Ho and Felix Chang on Intestacy and Inequality Under China’s Revised Succession Law (AJCL)
"Intestacy and Inequality Under China’s Revised Succession Law"
Felix Chang, Lusina Ho
The American Journal of Comparative Law, Volume 72, Issue 3, Fall 2024, pp. 487–527
Published online: June 2025
Wednesday, October 8, 2025
Yun Zhao et al on Mechanical Responsiveness: China’s Online Petition System (The China Quarterly)
Jieren Hu, Xuan Gong, Yun Zhao
The China Quarterly, Volume 262, pp. 293-309
Published online: May 2025
Monday, October 6, 2025
Daniel Bell and Qianfan Zhang on Which Political System Is Appropriate for China? An Exchange on Electoral Democracy and Political Meritocracy (Dao)
Daniel Bell, Qianfan Zhang
Dao, Volume 24, pp. 199–226
Published online: April 2025
Saturday, October 4, 2025
New Issue of Hong Kong Law Journal (Vol. 55, Part 1 of 2025)
Vol. 55, Part 1 of 2025
Articles
Knowing Receipt of Shares in a Foreign Non-Common Law Company: Byers v Saudi National Bank
WMC Gummow AC...1
Whose Role? Judicial vs Legislative Protection of Minority Rights
Kemal Bokhary...5
In the Name of Public Interest: Challenging the Coroner’s Failure to Hold a Death Inquest in Hong Kong
Trevor TW Wan...11
Conditional Discharge, Statutory Interpretation and the Mental Health Review Tribunal
Daisy Cheung and Edward Lui...29
Courts and the Legislative Assembly in the Macau SAR Constitutional Crisis (2005–2009)
Luis WK Wong...47
Study on the Preventive Mechanisms for Food Safety Incidents in Hong Kong and Macao: Comparative Perspectives
Ting Zhou, Zimao Xie and Jingwen Chen...77
Can Musical Elements be Copyrightable? Rethinking the Boundaries of Copyright Protection
Xuan Shen...101
Stamp Duty in Hong Kong (1981–2024): The Evolution Waltz
Wilson Chow and Josiah Chung Ming Chan...101
Trevor Wan on In the Name of Public Interest: Challenging the Coroner’s Failure to Hold a Death Inquest in Hong Kong (HKLJ)
Trevor Wan
Hong Kong Law Journal, Vol. 55, Part 1 of 2025, pp.11 - 28
Abstract: Section 20 of the Hong Kong Coroners Ordinance (Cap 504) empowers the Secretary for Justice and any other properly interested persons to apply to the Court of First Instance for an order that a death inquest be held if “a coroner has failed to hold an inquest which ought to be held”. In Leung Shuk Ling and others v Coroner [2023] 4 HKLRD 264, the Court of Appeal for the first time outlined the proper approach to a s 20 application whereby the “public interest” is implicated. This article presents a critical analysis of the reasoning in Leung Shuk Ling, focusing on the legal and statutory basis of the “public interest” factor as well as the necessary limits that should be placed upon it.
Daisy Cheung and Edward Lui on Conditional Discharge, Statutory Interpretation and the Mental Health Review Tribunal (HKLJ)
Daisy Cheung and Edward Lui
Hong Kong Law Journal, Vol. 55, Part 1 of 2025, pp.29 - 48
Abstract: This article examines the Hong Kong Mental Health Review Tribunal’s powers in relation to the imposition of conditional discharge orders under s 59E(2) of the Mental Health Ordinance (Cap 136). The wording of s 59E(2) refers back to s 42B of the Mental Health Ordinance, the primary legislative provision governing the conditional discharge regime. There remains ambiguity, however, regarding the scope of the Tribunal’s powers in relation to such matters as the factors that the Tribunal is to consider when deciding whether to impose a conditional discharge order. Section 59E(3) of the Mental Health Ordinance, for example, provides additional factors beyond those contained in s 42B for the Tribunal to consider. In this article, we examine this ambiguity, presenting three different options as to how the interaction between ss 42B and 59E(3) might be interpreted. We then argue that the first of these options is the correct interpretation. We also examine the role that the s 59E(3) factors play within this interpretation, and in particular the implications that the s 59E(3) factors may in turn have for s 42B.
Wilson Chow and Josiah Chung Ming Chan on Stamp Duty in Hong Kong (1981–2024): The Evolution Waltz (HKLJ)
Wilson Chow and Josiah Chung Ming Chan
Hong Kong Law Journal, Vol. 55, Part 1 of 2025, pp.127 - 152
Abstract: Apart from the schedular income taxes imposed under the Inland Revenue Ordinance (Cap 112), stamp duty stands out as the only other major type of tax levied in Hong Kong. Although the current Stamp Duty Ordinance (Cap 117) (SDO) was enacted in 1981, stamp duty is indeed the oldest of the taxes administered by the Inland Revenue Department. It holds significant importance in terms of fiscal revenue generation. Initially and largely modelled on the Stamp Act 1891 (UK), the SDO was less complicated until recent extensive revisions since 2010, particularly concerning real estate transactions in Hong Kong. This article examines the evolution of stamp duty in Hong Kong, focusing on its application to real estate transactions, starting from the inception of the SDO to date. The history of land-related stamp duty has seen changes in the stages of transactions subject to duty and the duty rates, as well as the introduction of new stamp duty categories. “One step forward, one step sideways and one step back” is arguably an apt description of those changes. It also raises the question of how far those changes have effectively achieved their intended goals in the wider context of regulating housing affordability in the real estate market. In the wake of recent social unrest in Hong Kong and the impact of the COVID-19, there is a call for the government to explore outside the box for fresh approaches and perspectives to address current challenges.

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