HKU Legal Scholarship Blog
Follow the research activities and scholarship of the Faculty of Law, The University of Hong Kong
Saturday, April 20, 2024
Marco Wan comments on the case of Sham Tsz-kit v. Secretary for Justice on Deutsche Welle news
Friday, April 19, 2024
Roda Mushkat on Authoritarian International Law: An Unfinished Research Odyssey (CICLR)
"Authoritarian International Law: An Unfinished Research Odyssey"
Roda Mushkat
Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review (Volume 7, Issue 1, pp. 51-118)
Published online: 2024
Abstract: The concept-rich international legal space has expanded in the past few years by incorporating the notion that there is a distinct form of international law possessing authoritarian traits. This notion stands in contrast with the time-honored mainstream variant which is assumed to have liberal-democratic roots and dispositions. A product of the current decade, authoritarian international law has nevertheless left a palpable mark on international legal theory and is believed to have materially reshaped the international legal landscape. The primary aim of this Article is to summarize the achievements made in analyzing the dimensions of this new concept and its considerable practical implications, with a view to suggesting some additional lines of inquiry.
Thursday, April 18, 2024
New book review for Daniel Bell et al on Bridging Two Worlds Comparing Classical Political Thought and Statecraft in India and China (University of California Press)
Bridging Two Worlds: Comparing Classical Political Thought and Statecraft in India and China
Daniel A. Bell
University of California Press
Published in January 2023
New book review available in April 2024 (Click here for details)
Tuesday, April 16, 2024
Thomas Cheng on Competition Law and AI (CUP book chapter)
"Competition Law and AI"
Thomas Cheng
in Ernest Lim (ed), Phillip Morgan (ed), The Cambridge Handbook of Private Law and Artificial Intelligence, (Cambridge University Press, March 2024), pp. 472-491
Published online: March 2024
Monday, April 15, 2024
Hui Jing on Regulating donation-based crowdfunding platforms in Hong Kong: A trust law framework (Common Law World Review)
"Regulating donation-based crowdfunding platforms in Hong Kong: A trust law framework"
Hui Jing
Common Law World Review
Published online: March 2024
Saturday, April 13, 2024
New book by Angela Zhang: High Wire - How China Regulates Big Tech and Governs Its Economy (Oxford University Press)
High Wire - How China Regulates Big Tech and Governs Its Economy
Angela Zhang
Oxford University Press
Published in April 2024
432 pp.
Through a robust analysis of the tumultuous 2020-2022 tech crackdown, Zhang explores the model's profound impact on three vital pillars of Chinese platform regulation, including antitrust, data, and labor enforcement. As Zhang demonstrates, the tech crackdown has led to the private sector's retreat and the state's advancement in the tech industry. These regulatory shifts have also steered investors from consumer tech businesses toward hardcore technologies that are essential for China's bid to overtake the United States in innovation.
More than just a study of China, Zhang offers a global perspective by comparing China's regulatory landscape with rapidly moving developments in the United States and the European Union. This comparative analysis reveals the shared regulatory challenges all face and sheds light on the future direction of Chinese tech regulation. Finally, she peers into the future of China's tech governance, specifically focusing on the burgeoning realm of generative artificial intelligence.
Providing an unparalleled deep dive into China's rapidly evolving digital economy, High Wire is a must-read for those interested in how the manifold ways in which China regulates and governs its economy.
Professor Angela Zhang’s “High Wire” Book Talk Series: Please click here for details.
Book Trailer: Please click here to view on YouTube.
Friday, April 12, 2024
Ryan Whalen awarded the 2024 Microsoft Research AI & Society Fellow (Copyright Protection for User Data in the Era of LLMs)
Congratulations to Ryan Whalen, who awarded the 2024 Microsoft Research AI & Society Fellow.
Background on the prize: The Microsoft Research AI & Society Fellows program supports interdisciplinary AI research in the context of societal impact. The program offers opportunities for fellows from fields beyond core computer sciences to join and support interdisciplinary research conversations with Microsoft Researchers. By facilitating these new collaborations, Microsoft aims to scale the impact of collective research efforts at the intersection of AI & Society. For more information on the award, click here.Thursday, April 11, 2024
Jiajun Luo on Authoritarian Legal (Ir)rationality: The Saga of ‘Picking Quarrels’ in China (The ECLR Hub)
"Authoritarian Legal (Ir)rationality: The Saga of ‘Picking Quarrels’ in China"
Jiajun Luo (PhD candidate)
The ECLR Hub
Published online: March 2024
In response to an apartment fire in Urumqi which killed eleven residents in November 2022, Shanghai residents took to the city’s Urumqi Road, protesting peacefully against China’s zero-covid policy. While the protests resulted in the official end of nearly all Covid-19 related restrictions, several participants were detained and sentenced for picking quarrels and provoking trouble (Criminal Code Art. 293). Photo by Cinea467
It is widely reported that the utilization of the crime picking quarrels (寻衅滋事) by Chinese authorities has resulted in the imprisonment of thousands for their online expressions, ranging from complaints about traffic police to criticisms of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on social media platforms. Moreover, this catchall category extends beyond speech-related offenses, serving as a tool for political suppression since 2013 and targeting various civil groups in China, including feminists and human rights lawyers.
However, picking quarrels is not confined to politically sensitive cases. Authorities also employ it to...
Please click here for full article on the ECLR and click here for draft paper on SSRN.
Wednesday, April 10, 2024
Giuliano Castellano on Don’t Call It a Failure: Systemic Risk Governance for Complex Financial Systems (LSI)
"Don’t Call It a Failure: Systemic Risk Governance for Complex Financial Systems"
Giuliano Castellano
Law & Social Inquiry (First View, pp. 1-42)
Published online: March 2024
Abstract: The probability that an event will avalanche into an impairment of essential services constitutes a “systemic risk.” Owing to the inherent complexities of modern societies, the outbreak of a novel disease or the failure of a financial institution can rapidly escalate into an impact significantly larger than the initial event. Through the lens of complex system theory, this article draws a parallel between financial crises and disasters to contend that the regulatory framework for financial systemic risk is unequipped to address its fundamental dynamics. Epitomized by the market failure rationale, financial regulation is premised on a reductionist view that purports both systemic risk and law as external to the actions of market participants. Conversely, this article advances a twofold conceptual framework. First, it shows that systemic risk emerges from the same complex dynamics that generate the financial system. Second, it understands law as an agent of complexity, thus contributing to the emergence of finance and its inherent instability. Normatively, this conceptual framework reveals the limits of current regulatory approaches and constructs a holistic risk governance framework that is akin to the one adopted to govern disaster risks.
Tuesday, April 9, 2024
Yun Zhao and Hui Chen on Enhancing access to digital justice: digital governance of dispute resolution and dispute prevention in online commercial activities (Journal of International Dispute Settlement)
"Enhancing access to digital justice: digital governance of dispute resolution and dispute prevention in online commercial activities"
Yun Zhao, Hui Chen
Journal of International Dispute Settlement (idae001, 2024)
Published online: February 2024
Thursday, March 21, 2024
CMEL Newsletter (Jan - Feb 2024)
Wednesday, March 20, 2024
Zhao Yun and Yu Jiaying on Legal Status of Lunar Stations (Journal of Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics Social Sciences Edition)
"Legal Status of Lunar Stations"
Zhao Yun and Yu Jiaying
Journal of Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics Social Sciences Edition Vol.37 No.2 March 2024
Published online: February 2024
Tuesday, March 19, 2024
Peter Chau on Commentary on “Responsibility for Health and the Value of Choice” (Palgrave Macmillan Book Chapter)
"Commentary on “Responsibility for Health and the Value of Choice”"
Peter Chau
in Hon-Lam Li (ed), Lanson Lectures in Bioethics (2016-2022): Assisted Suicide, Responsibility, and Pandemic Ethics, (Palgrave Macmillan Cham, February 2024), pp. 109–120
Published online: February 2024
Abstract: This chapter is a commentary on T. M. Scanlon’s Lanson Lecture in Bioethics. It discusses whether the existence of disagreement affects the justifiability of “libertarian paternalism” and whether Scanlon’s “Value of Choice” account fits better with our considered judgments on allocation of health resources than luck egalitarianism.
Monday, March 18, 2024
Shane Chalmers and Desmond Manderson on Vortext (Law & Literature)
"Vortext"
Shane Chalmers and Desmond Manderson
Law & Literature
Published online: February 2024
Abstract: This article introduces the special issue of Law & Literature on “Colonial Legal Imaginaries | Southern Literary Futures”. The aim is to advance two imperative tasks. The first, analytic, task is to pay attention to the diversity of colonial imaginaries across the very different terrains, literatures, and epistemologies of the so-called South. Rather than continue to impose a Eurocentric canon on the domain of law and literature, the argument here is that we need to better immerse ourselves in the diversity of colonial imaginaries from places whose experiences were as different as Indigenous Australia, India under the Raj, African game reserves, or the post-conquest Americas. The second, ethical and aesthetic, task is to accept literature’s invitation not simply to document colonial, or for that matter post-colonial, ideologies, but to reimagine them. The realms of literature and art represent a crucial opportunity to talk back to power through the very modalities of fantasy and imagination, myth and story, that have been so indispensable to its maintenance. Each author in this collection wholeheartedly contributes to these two tasks, combining an analytical expansion of the past with a creative ethical engagement with the present and the future.
Friday, March 15, 2024
Taorui Guan on Cooperative Federalism and Patent Legislation: A Study Comparing China and the United States (CJIL)
Taorui Guan
Chicago Journal of International Law (vol. 24, no. 2 (2024), pp. 259-304)
Published online: February 2024
Thursday, March 14, 2024
New Book edited by Po Jen Yap and Mathias Siems: The Cambridge Handbook of Comparative Law (Cambridge University Press)
The Cambridge Handbook of Comparative Law
Edited by Mathias Siems, Po Jen Yap
Cambridge University Press
Published in February 2024
780 pp.
Wednesday, March 13, 2024
New Book Edited by Kelley Loper et al: Gender, Sexuality and Constitutionalism in Asia
Gender, Sexuality and Constitutionalism in Asia
Edited by Wen-Chen Chang, Kelley Loper, Mara Malagodi, Ruth Rubio-MarÃn
Bloomsbury Publishing
Published in January 2024
384 pp.
Tuesday, March 12, 2024
Ziyue Zhou and Kwan Yuen Iu on Catalyst for Common Law Evolution: Experiment with ChatGPT and a Hypothetical Common Law Jurisdiction (Asian Journal of Law and Economics)
"Catalyst for Common Law Evolution: Experiment with ChatGPT and a Hypothetical Common Law Jurisdiction"
Kwan Yuen Iu and Ziyue Zhou (PhD candidate)
Asian Journal of Law and Economics
Published Online: 5 January 2024
Monday, March 11, 2024
HKU LAW Junior Academic Fellows: Call for Applications
HKU Faculty of Law has established a pre-doctoral fellowship, which will be awarded to law graduates in and from Hong Kong who have recently obtained a master degree in law from a leading international law school. Recipients of the fellowship will serve as a junior academic fellow in the Faculty of Law for up to one year with a competitive salary, during which they will be required to perform limited teaching duties. The fellows are expected to devote their time primarily to securing a place in a doctorate degree programme at a top global law school. Depending on whether they secure a scholarship elsewhere for their doctoral study, fellows may be awarded a scholarship under this fellowship programme that contributes towards the cost of their doctoral study. This is a highly competitive new initiative of the Faculty of Law designed to identify academic talent with strong potential for success in doctoral studies. No more than two successful candidates will be selected each year.
Interested candidates may send their CV and a personal statement to lawfac@hku.hk. Applications will be considered on a rolling basis.
Taorui Guan on Intellectual Property Legislation Holism in China (University of Pennsylvania Asian Law Review)
Taorui Guan
University of Pennsylvania Asian Law Review, (vol. 18, (2023), pp. 81-140)