Craig Purshouse et al on Liability For Rugby Related Neuro-Degenerative Disease: A Question of Tort (JPIL)

"Liability For Rugby Related Neuro-Degenerative Disease: A Question of Tort"
Emma Cave, Craig Purshouse, and Joe Purshouse
The Journal of Personal Injury Law, 2, pp. 93-112
Published online: May 2024

Abstract: This article examines the potential liability of rugby governing bodies in negligence for their alleged past failures to protect players from known risks associated with the neurodegenerative consequences of rugby-related traumatic brain injury. Not only is there a strong public interest in the claims given the impact it could have on the game, but the claims raise novel issues in tort law and legal medicine. We consider the action in negligence in light of recent developments such as scientific advances in relation to both causes and diagnoses of neurodegenerative disease, criticism of the industry from independent committees, and increased readiness of the courts to hold sporting bodies to account. The article sets out the barriers a claimant would face and the doctrinal advances that would be required to overcome them. While other writers have been sceptical of the chances of claimant success, the argument put forward in this article is that barriers to a claim are not insurmountable, provided the claim is carefully articulated taking account of both doctrine and the developing evidence base.

New book by Cora Chan: Deference in Human Rights Adjudication (Oxford University Press)

Deference in Human Rights Adjudication
Cora Chan
Oxford University Press
Published in June 2024
224 pp.

Abstract: In human rights adjudication, courts sometimes face issues that they lack the expertise or constitutional legitimacy to resolve. One way of dealing with such issues is to ‘defer’, or accord a margin of appreciation, to the judgments of public authorities. Although there is a rich literature on the subject of deference, two important questions remain unresolved: what devices courts should use to exercise deference, and how deference can be made more workable for judges and predictable for litigants. This book offers the first comprehensive analysis of these questions. It introduces six devices for deference (namely, the burden of proof, standard of proof, standard of review, giving of weight, choice of interpretation, and choice of remedy), analyses how courts should choose amongst them, and proposes techniques for rendering deference practicable. The book’s arguments will enable human rights adjudication to be more principled and more in line with the rule of law and separation of powers. The book has two distinctive features. First, it engages with the jurisprudence of six common law jurisdictions that apply a structured proportionality test in rights adjudication, namely, Canada, Hong Kong, Ireland, Israel, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. Second, the book offers guidelines for judges who wish to apply its theoretical arguments. Combining theory with practice in a broad range of jurisdictions, the book will be an important reference for researchers and students of constitutional theory, comparative constitutional law, and human rights law around the world. It will also assist practitioners, judges, and policymakers who have to grapple with issues of deference in adjudication.

HKU Law Welcomes Prof. Julian Nowag

Welcome to Prof. Julian Nowag, who joins the Faculty of Law as an Associate Professor.

Julian is an Associate Professor at HKU and Lund University, Sweden, specializing in competition law. He is a leading scholar in sustainability and is currently working on the intersection between AI and competition. His recent work with Thomas K Cheng on  Algorithmic Predation and Exclusion won a Concurrence Award in 2023. Julian is also an Associate at the Oxford Centre for Competition Law and Policy and serves as a managing editor of The Journal for Antitrust Enforcement (OUP). He has authored and edited several books, including Environmental Integration in Competition and Free-Movement Laws  (OUP 2016), Intersections Between Corporate and Antitrust Law (eds. with Marco Corradi) (CUP 2024), Research Handbook on Sustainability and Competition Law  (ed) (Edward Elgar 2024), and Global Antitrust and Sustainability: law, economics, enforcement (OUP forthcoming 2024/25). 

Julian earned his Master’s degree (MSt) and doctorate (DPhil) from the University of Oxford. He also completed an LLM in European Legal Studies at Durham University and undergraduate law studies in Germany and Austria. At Lund University, he was the director of the master’s programme in European Business Law and taught courses on competition and various areas of EU law. Julian also taught EU law and competition law at Oxford and gave lectures and seminars on EU law, comparative law, and competition law in various European, Asian, and Latin American universities and institutions.

Julian is a qualified lawyer in Germany, with professional training that focused on competition law. He completed placements at the German Competition Authority’s international co-operation unit, the European Commission (DG Comp, cartels unit), and Allen & Overy’s German Antitrust unit in Hamburg. 

Julian can be found on LinkedIn, SSRN, and Twitter/X.

HKU Law Welcomes Prof. Adrian Kuenzler

Welcome to Prof. Adrian Kuenzler, who joins the Faculty of Law as an Associate Professor.

Adrian Kuenzler is Associate Professor at the University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law and Affiliate Fellow at the Information Society Project, Yale Law School. His research focuses on technology, innovation policy and competition, and examines problems in antitrust, intellectual property and consumer law from a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective. Adrian graduated from the University of Zürich (M.A., Ph.D.) and from Yale Law School (LL.M., J.S.D.). He has served as a Professor in the Faculty of Law at Zürich University and has held visiting academic positions at New York University School of Law, the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, Yale Law School, ETH Zürich, the European University Institute, the Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society and Oxford University. Adrian has held visiting professorship positions at Universidad de San Andrés (Buenos Aires) and the University of Münster. He has also been a Robert S. Campbell Visiting Fellow at Magdalen College, Oxford.

Adrian’s research on technology and digital markets is regularly relied on by governments and international organizations in debates around the interplay of competition law and data privacy and his work on how the design of online platforms shapes users’ behavior has been drawn upon by policymakers, think tanks and news outlets in different jurisdictions.

Adrian has received a number of prizes for his teaching and research, including the Young Scholar Prize of the International Association for Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy and the University of Zürich Certificate of Distinction in Teaching. He has received major research grants and fellowships for his work from the Swiss National Science Foundation and Society in Science, among others. Adrian has also been invited to serve as an independent expert in international court proceedings.

Hong Kong Law Journal (Vol. 53, Part 3 of 2023)

HONG KONG LAW JOURNAL

Vol. 53, Part 3 of 2023

Editor-in-Chief: Professor Rick Glofcheski

Associate Editor: Professor Albert Chen

Publisher: Sweet & Maxwell

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Analysis

Foreign Law in Common Law Courts of Appeal: From Hong Kong to Jersey and Cayman Islands 

The Hon William Gummow AC...907

Articles

The Legal Response to Drugs and Social Supply: The Case of Hong Kong

Karen A Joe-Laidler, Kate Lowe, Simon NM Young and Tin H Cheung...913

A Tribute to the Late Sir Tl Yang (1929–2023)

Trailblazing the Colonial Judiciary: A Tribute to Hong Kong’s First Chinese Chief Justice

Chen Li...941

China Law

An Examination of the Power of the Central People’s Government to Issue Directives to the Chief Executive under the Hong Kong Basic Law

Fan Xiang...967

At the Crossroads? Assessing SEP Injunctive Relief under Patent Law and Competition Law in China

Bo Yuan and Peicheng Wu...995

OECD/G20 Pillar Two and Tax Laws of China: How to Harmonise? 

Xiaojing Cui and Yuan Liu...1027

Empirical Study of the Role of the Chinese Guiding Case System in Chinese Law 

Dong Yan and Jeffery E Thomas...1057

Focus: The Empirical Turn in Chinese Legal Studies

Introduction

Benjamin M Chen...1081

Empirical Legal Studies Made in China: An Empirical Study on Legal Doctoral Dissertations

Jinhua Cheng...1085

Quantitative Legal Research Based on China’s Adjudication Documents: The End of the Golden Era?

Ke Li and Yang Feng...1119

Problems and Misunderstandings in Chinese Empirical Legal Research: The Example of Papers Involving Judgment Documents 

Yu Zeyang and Yu Mengyao...1141

Monopoly and Fragmentation: Data Collection in Chinese Empirical Legal Study

Qin Ma...1171

The Application and Limitations of Survey Methods in the Quantitative Assessment of Justice in China

Hongqi Wu and Lin Haibin...1195

Trade-off Between “Big Data” and “Small Data”: a Simulation Study on The Application of Random Sampling in Chinese Empirical Legal Studies

Yiwei Xia...1215

Data Still Needs Theory: Collider Bias in Empirical Legal Research

Benjamin M Chen and Xiaohan Yin...1241

How to Do Empirical Legal Studies without Numbers? 

Sida Liu and Sitao Li...1259

Book Review

Haochen Sun, Technology and the Public Interest

Tap Huang...1275

Simon Young et al on The Legal Response to Drugs and Social Supply: The Case of Hong Kong (HKLJ)

"The Legal Response to Drugs and Social Supply: The Case of Hong Kong"
Karen A Joe-Laidler, Kate Lowe, Simon NM Young and Tin H Cheung
Hong Kong Law Journal, Vol. 53, Part 3 of 2023, pp.913 - 939

Abstract: Drug exchanges are often embedded in non-commercially oriented, informal arrangements among social networks. Such exchanges are based on a social supply paradigm where reciprocity and sharing are integral to obtaining and consuming drugs. This raises questions as to how the justice system responds to this type of engagement with the market. While some countries have accommodated to the realities of social supply with a comparatively lenient approach, others have taken a different route. We examine Hong Kong’s legal response to the emergence of social supply in the context of its common law system and prohibitionist drug policies. We draw on 96 legal cases involving social trafficking. In keeping with the common law system, Hong Kong courts draw on UK cases in considering social trafficking, but diverge in its rationale, finding that “trafficking is trafficking”. As such, the courts have not viewed social trafficking as a mitigating factor as elsewhere, but it has also not been seen as an aggravating factor. Our Analysis suggests that the mitigating effect of self-consumption is being offset by the consideration of latent risk. This legal response leads us to conclude that the emergence of social supply has not challenged but reinforced Hong Kong’s prohibitionist policies.

Benjamin Chen and Xiaohan Yin on Data Still Needs Theory: Collider Bias in Empirical Legal Research (HKLJ)

"Data Still Needs Theory: Collider Bias in Empirical Legal Research"
Benjamin Chen and Xiaohan Yin (PhD candidate)
Hong Kong Law Journal, Vol. 53, Part 3 of 2023, pp.1241 - 1258
Abstract: Big data is characterised not only by the amount but also the kinds of information that can be created, stored, and processed. This explosion of data, accompanied by the capacity to analyse them, has catalyzed large n, quantitative approaches to the study of law and legal institutions. But neither size nor quality guarantees the validity of causal inferences drawn from observational data. For example, although the inclusion of control variables can help isolate causal effects, not all variables are good controls. Bad controls are not harmless and can create the impression of a causal relationship where none exists. This spurious association is called collider bias. We introduce the concept of collider bias and give motivated examples of how it can arise in empirical legal research. The selection of good controls requires knowledge and assumptions about causal structures. Theory and domain knowledge are essential for quantitative analysis, even in the era of big data.

Please click here to view the full article on SSRN.

Sida Liu and Sitao Li on How to Do Empirical Legal Studies without Numbers? (HKLJ)

"How to Do Empirical Legal Studies without Numbers?"
Sida Liu and Sitao Li
Hong Kong Law Journal, Vol. 53, Part 3 of 2023, pp.1260 - 1273

Abstract: How to do empirical legal studies without numbers? This article addresses this methodological question at a crossroads of empirical legal studies in China. It does not aim to provide a normative defence for the value of qualitative methods. Instead, we demonstrate how a ‘scientific turn’ in the 2010s has made empirical legal research in China almost exclusively about quantitative research and then illustrate how qualitative methods can also benefit from the rise of digital technology. We draw on three recent studies as examples to compare and contrast the methodological challenges and opportunities for doing empirical legal studies without numbers: (1) Ke Li’s book Marriage Unbound as an example of ethnography in combination with archival research; (2) Sitao Li’s article ‘Face-Work in Chinese Routine Criminal Trials’ as an example of trial video observation; and, (3) Di Wang and Sida Liu’s article ‘Performing “Artivism”’ as an example of online ethnography. The discussion shows that, despite the rising popularity of ‘big data’ computational analysis in recent years, quantitative methods are not necessarily more technologically advanced than qualitative ones. Technology-assisted interviews and ethnography can open up many new possibilities in data collection and data analysis, sometimes resulting in more exciting and innovative research.

Please click here to view the full article on SSRN.

Yating Lin on ‘China’s Disequilibrium’ in ISDS: an interplay of China’s trade-offs and domestic institutions to investment treaty policy (Journal of International Dispute Settlement)

"‘China’s Disequilibrium’ in ISDS: an interplay of China’s trade-offs and domestic institutions to investment treaty policy"

Yating Lin (PhD candidate)
Journal of International Dispute Settlement, idae017
Published online: 6 August 2024

Abstract: This article explores China’s limited engagement in Investor-State Dispute Settlment (ISDS) despite its significant foreign investment inflows, termed “China’s Disequilibrium”. Despite having liberal ISDS provisions in its Bilateral Investment Treaties(BITs), China has faced only nine claims and has never lost a case. Using a political-economic framework, the article examines domestic factors influencing China's stance on ISDS, highlighting its shift from ideological resistance to acceptance. The paper argues that China’s ambivalent mood to ISDS render it to adopt a bifurcated strategy: internationally, it incrementally liberalizes investor-State Arbitration to protect Chinese investors abroad; domestically, it relies on local remedy to protect foreign investors and discourages the use of investment treaty arbitration. This approach contrasts with other jurisdictions and partly explains China’s Disequilibrium in ISDS.

Holly Leung on The Extended Continental Shelf in Nicaragua v Colombia: Identifying a Customary Rule Based on CLCS Submissions? (Ocean Development & International Law)

"The Extended Continental Shelf in Nicaragua v Colombia: Identifying a Customary Rule Based on CLCS Submissions?"
Holly Leung (PCLL Graduate)
Ocean Development & International Law (Volume 55, 2024 - Issue 1-2)
Published online: 25 July 2024

Abstract: In Nicaragua v Colombia, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) identified a rule in customary international law which prohibited a state from asserting an extended continental shelf (ECS) that encroaches on maritime areas within 200 nautical miles (NM) of another state. While the ICJ reached this conclusion based on the practice of states parties’ submissions to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS), in which a vast majority of states parties had refrained from asserting an ECS that extends within the 200 M line of another state, the ICJ’s approach appears flawed. On an inductive examination of the existing CLCS submissions, it is evident that while a number of states have exercised restraint when asserting their ECS, the CLCS submissions do not indicate sufficiently widespread and uniform state practice nor opinio juris supporting the identification of a customary rule as asserted by the ICJ.

HKU Law Welcomes Prof. Kelvin F.K. Low

Welcome to Prof. Kelvin F.K. Low, who joins the Faculty of Law as a Professor. 

Kelvin read law at the National University of Singapore and Oxford University. Before his current appointment at the University of Hong Kong, he held previous appointments at National University of Singapore, Singapore Management University, and City University of Hong Kong. 

Kelvin's research interest spans the field of private law but with a particular interest in property, broadly defined. He has published internationally with leading journals such as the American Journal of Comparative Law, the International & Comparative Law Quarterly, Legal Studies, Lloyd’s Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly, the Law Quarterly Review, the Melbourne University Law Review, and the Modern Law Review. He is a co-author (together with Michael Bridge, Louise Gullifer, and Gerard McMeel) of the 2nd and 3rd editions of The Law of Personal Property, and co-author (together with Tang Hang Wu) of the 3rd and 4th editions of Tan Sook Yee’s Principles of Singapore Land Law. His works have been cited by the courts in Australia, Canada, England and Wales, Hong Kong SAR, Malaysia, New Zealand, and Singapore as well as law commissions and law reform bodies in Australia, England and Wales, Ireland, New Zealand, Scotland, and Singapore.

Taorui Guan on Personalizing Patent Law with Social Credit Data (JIPEL)

"Personalizing Patent Law with Social Credit Data"
Taorui Guan
NYU Journal of Intellectual Property and Entertainment Law (Vol 13, no. 2, spring 2024)
Published online: July 2024

Abstract: In the era of digitization, data has become a pivotal force driving advancements across various sectors and transforming legal systems worldwide. China, in particular, is exploring new data-driven governance models. A prime example of this is its integration of the patent system with the Social Credit System (SCS). This paper aims to fill the void in theoretical research on this subject, moving beyond the prevalent narrative of the SCS as either a tool of state surveillance or a reputation-based regulatory mechanism. Instead, it introduces the concept of personalized law in the context of China’s patent system.

The paper suggests that the integration of social credit data within China’s patent law system aligns the system’s operations more closely with its objectives. This offers a personalized approach that provides individual market entities with tailored incentives based on their unique characteristics. To analyze this approach, the paper proposes a novel four-part analytical framework: profiling, personalization, communication, and adjustment. The paper then applies this framework to the two core mechanisms that result from the integration of the patent system with the SCS: the Reward and Punishment Mechanism and the Tiered Regulation Mechanism. This analysis reveals that these mechanisms are still in the stage of crude personalization and grapples with challenges such as narrow data scope, lack of transparency, and over-penalization.

The paper discusses two implications of personalized law reform: the redistribution of power toward administrative bodies—which necessitates a rebalancing of powers to avoid abuse and protect individual rights—and the possible expansion of the law’s functions—which might not align with existing normative theories and might have unintended consequences. The process of personalization requires scholars and policymakers to adapt and refine these theories as well as to identify and eliminate unintended consequences.

Ying Zhu on A quasi-normative conflict: Resolving the tension between investment treaties and climate action (RECIEL)

"A quasi-normative conflict: Resolving the tension between investment treaties and climate action"
Ying Zhu
Review of European, Comparative & International Environmental Law
Published online: July 2024

Abstract: The conflict between investment treaties and climate action is escalating due to recent investment arbitration cases challenging States' fossil fuel phase-out measures as violations of investment treaty obligations. As countries continue to implement climate mitigation and adaptation measures across various industries, this tension is expected to result in a rise in climate-related investment arbitration claims. The current literature has primarily presented the tension between investment and climate treaties as a vertical conflict, with investment treaties having a chilling effect on States' climate regulation. The common defence for States' regulation has been based on their ‘right to regulate’. It remains unclear whether there exists a horizontal conflict between investment and climate treaties, primarily due to the flexible nature of climate treaty obligations. However, a sovereignty-based justification fails to recognise the international obligation of climate action and is insufficient for reconciling the conflict. This article delves into the intricate nature of the conflict between States' climate measures and their investment treaty obligations and argues that the conflict exhibits a ‘quasi-normative’ nature, given the combination of binding climate obligations, permissive implementation methods and normative expectations of ambition. The article suggests that investment treaties should include clearly defined conflict clauses that outline the scope of the conflict between investment and climate treaties and establish specific mechanisms for resolving such conflicts.

Book review of Diamant Neil's Useful Bullshit: Constitutions in Chinese Politics and Society by Hualing Fu

"DIAMANT, Neil J. 2022. Useful Bullshit: Constitutions in Chinese Politics and Society. Ithaca: Cornell University Press."
Hualing Fu
China Perspective (Issue 137, 2024)

Book Review: The book, despite its provocative title and tentative claims that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) used the constitution to manipulate emotions, that is to induce “feelings of uncertainty, jealousy, apathy, helplessness, fear, frustration, and confusion” (p. 192), sheds new light on popular constitutionalism. Ironically, it offers a hopeful perspective on the constitutional future in China, arguing that citizens can envision the utility of a constitution beyond its original intent. Focusing on the public consultation of the 1954 draft Constitution organised by the Party, the book presents a diverse range of public opinions, including frank, open, and lively criticisms that are not typically associated with authoritarian states. These opinions come from individuals with various political and economic backgrounds, actively utilising the constitution to their advantage.

The book makes three significant contributions to the academic study of the Chinese Constitution......(Please click here to view full text of the book review.)

Raymond Wacks on Complicity or Complacency? Judging Judges in Authoritarian States (The Montréal Review)

"Complicity or Complacency? Judging Judges in Authoritarian States"
Raymond Wacks
The Montréal Review
Published online: June 2024

Courts personify the law. In the more grandiloquent accounts of the legal system, judges are depicted as its custodians, guardians of its values, sentinels of justice and fair play. They embody fairness, evenhandedness, and impartiality. And an independent judiciary is among the hallmarks of the rule of law. The jurist Ronald Dworkin memorably observed that ‘courts are the capitals of law’s empire, and judges are its princes.’

Judges are not, however, always perceived in these lofty terms. In the words of a distinguished English judge:

[T]he public entertain a range of views, not all consistent (one minute they are senile and out of touch, the next the very people to conduct a detailed and searching inquiry; one minute port-gorged dinosaurs imposing savage sentences on hapless miscreants, the next wishy-washy liberals unwilling to punish anyone properly for anything), although often unfavourable.

Judges are, like all of us, tainted by personal predilections and political prejudices. Yet occasionally it is asserted that to acknowledge judicial frailty is, in some sense, subversive, ‘as if judges’, as the illustrious American judge Benjamin Cardozo put it, ‘must lose respect and confidence by the reminder that they are subject to human limitations.’ They are, nevertheless, the archetypical legal institution. Their independence epitomises the very apotheosis of justice, and the ostensible demarcation between legislation and adjudication is one of the most cherished elements of a free society.

Lending legitimacy

Whatever their imperfections, independent judges perform another important role in a democratic society......(Please click here to view the full text of the article)

New Issue of Hong Kong Law Journal (Vol. 54, Part 1 of 2024)

HONG KONG LAW JOURNAL

Vol. 54, Part 1 of 2024

Editor-in-Chief: Prof. Eric C Ip

Deputy Editor-in-Chief: Prof. Julius Yam

Publisher: Sweet & Maxwell

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Obituary

In Memoriam: Professor Julius Yam (1992-2024), Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Hong Kong Law Journal 

Cora Chan and Hualing Fu...1

Articles

Transfiguring the Landscape — Morality, Courts and Justice 

Kemal Bokhary...5

The Asymmetric Evolution of the Basic Laws of Hong Kong and Macao

Wanli Wang...13

Macau and Hong Kong: Convergence or Divergence? An Analysis of the 2023 Macau National Security Law

Han Zhu...53

Junk Food Control Standards Based on the Protection of Rights to Food: Study About Issues in Hong Kong/Macau and International Experience

Ting Zhou, Jingwen Chen and Qiuning Luan...65

Breaking Dilemmas: The Need for an International Liability Regime for Commercial Spaceflight

Jie Long and Wenzhen Chen...85

The Reform of Civil Online Litigation in China: Development and Predicaments

Xingmei Zhang and Jieren Hu...109

The Current Debate and Future Development of Dual-Class Share Structures in China

Min Yan...133

Pharmaceutical Patent Protection in the China-US Phase One Trade Agreement: China’s Perspective

Na Zhang and Li Liu...157

Narrow and Problematic Interpretation of an Arbitration Agreement’s Scope under Chinese Law: The Missing Pro-Arbitration Presumptive Rule

Tietie Zhang...179

From “Line Appraisal” to “Case-Process Ratio”: Will the New Case Quality Assessment System Facilitate the Changing Role of Chinese Prosecutor?

Peter CH Chan and Wanqiang Wu...203

The Accountability of Non-charitable Donation-based Crowdfunding Platforms in China

Dejian Li and Hui Jing...231

Data Governance in China’s Digital Market Economy

Sijuade Animashaun...253

Book Review

Shucheng Wang, Law as an Instrument: Sources of Chinese Law for Authoritarian Legality

Samuli Seppänen...285

Han Zhu on Macau and Hong Kong: Convergence or Divergence? An Analysis of the 2023 Macau National Security Law (HKLJ)

"Macau and Hong Kong: Convergence or Divergence? An Analysis of the 2023 Macau National Security Law"
Han Zhu
Hong Kong Law Journal, Vol. 54, Part 1 of 2024, pp.53 - 63

Abstract: On 18 May 2023, the Macau Legislative Assembly passed amendments to the Law on Safeguarding National Security (MANSL), drawing heavily on the 2020 Hong Kong National Security Law (HKNSL). This article examines the major modifications made to the MANSL in reference to the HKNSL, and demonstrates that the revised MANSL has deviated from its pro-liberal, narrowly defined precursor. The two distinct paradigms of national security legislation in Hong Kong and Macau reveal the increasingly muddled and complex constitutional relationship between the central authority and the two Special Administrative Regions.

Please click here to view the full article on SSRN.

Hui Jing and Dejian Li on The Accountability of Non-charitable Donation-based Crowdfunding Platforms in China (HKLJ)

"The Accountability of Non-charitable Donation-based Crowdfunding Platforms in China"
Dejian Li and Hui Jing
Hong Kong Law Journal, Vol. 54, Part 1 of 2024, pp.231 - 252

Abstract: Due to the wide application of internet tools, non-charitable donation-based crowdfunding platforms (NDCPs) serving personal requests for help have been developing rapidly in China. However, due to the lack of a specific regulatory framework for the administration of donation funds by NDCPs, risks regarding the misuse of donation funds by beneficial objects and the mismanagement of donation funds by NDCPs have been frequently realised. To address these risks, Chinese legislators intend to authorise the Ministry of Civil Affairs and related departments to establish a systemic regulatory framework for NDCPs. Against this backdrop, this article explores one specific question: What measures can be implemented to ensure that NDCPs are held accountable for their administration of donation funds in China? This is the first English-language article to explore this question in the Chinese law context. First, it analyses the emergence of NDCPs in China and identifies the problems inherent in the administration of donation funds by these NDCPs. Second, it proposes a trust law framework to regulate the administration of donation funds by NDCPs.

Please click here to view the full article on SSRN.

Sijuade Animashaun on Data Governance in China’s Digital Market Economy (HKLJ)

"Data Governance in China’s Digital Market Economy"
Sijuade Animashaun (PhD candidate)
Hong Kong Law Journal, Vol. 54, Part 1 of 2024, pp.253 - 284

Abstract: The article explores the extant literature to articulate the theories at the background of the fundamental dynamics and platform business models driving the Chinese digital economy. It further highlights the challenges and opportunities these data-driven innovators pose to Chinese consumers and financial market efficiency, particularly competition and competitiveness (monopoly), stability and consumer data privacy protection. To these concerns, it provides an overview of the consumer-centric framework in the recent Chinese Personal Information Protection Law and offers critical analysis of the possibilities and drawbacks of the newly introduced right to data portability in Art 45. The use of theories and critical analysis in the paper is intended to provide a deep understanding of the prospects and limitations of the consumer-centric framework within the Chinese data governance regime and the areas in need of further regulatory interventions.

Please click here to view the full article on SSRN.

Congratulations to 6 HKU students being finalists in LRC Law Reform Essay Competition 2024

Congratulations to 6 HKU students being finalists in LRC Law Reform Essay Competition 2024:

Cheung Cheuk Yin Tammy
(Bachelor of Social Sciences (Government and Laws) and Bachelor of Laws)

Hong Ka Lam
(Juris Doctor)

Hu Chi Wai
(Bachelor of Social Sciences (Government and Laws) and Bachelor of Laws)

Ip Chin Victoria
(Bachelor of Social Sciences (Government and Laws) and Bachelor of Laws)

Lam Ka Ho
(Bachelor of Social Sciences (Government and Laws) and Bachelor of Laws)

Leung Ho Cheung
(Bachelor of Social Sciences (Government and Laws) and Bachelor of Laws)

Click here to view full text of their essays.