HKU Legal Scholarship Blog
Follow the research activities and scholarship of the Faculty of Law, The University of Hong Kong
Friday, July 11, 2025
Professor Simon Young joined the Editorial Board of Transnational Criminal Law Review (TCLR)
Wednesday, July 9, 2025
Valeria Vázquez Guevara and Claerwen O’Hara on ‘We, the peoples of the Earth’: ALBA, populism and the making of an alternative international law (London Review of International Law)
"‘We, the peoples of the Earth’: ALBA, populism and the making of an alternative international law"
Claerwen O’Hara, Valeria Vázquez Guevara
London Review of International Law
Published online: May 2025
Monday, July 7, 2025
HKU Law Welcomes Prof. Valeria Vázquez Guevara
Valeria researches and teaches across the areas of international law, law-and-humanities, and land/property law. Valeria’s research engages with law-and-humanities methodologies to address questions of international law, its institutions, contestations, and geopolitical implications, especially between North-South and South-South actors. The research builds on Valeria’s personal and professional experiences in international development and peacebuilding projects in El Salvador, Spain, the Basque Country, and South Africa.
Valeria is the author of Truth Commissions and International Law (Cambridge University Press, in press). The book examines how Truth Commissions deal with the plurality of (rival) accounts that exist across communities to establish an authoritative account of the past. It expands on her doctoral thesis at Melbourne Law School, which won the University of Melbourne Chancellor’s Prize for Excellence in the PhD Thesis and Melbourne Law School’s Harold Luntz Prize for Best Doctoral Thesis. Valeria’s next major research project focuses on the historical and contemporary relationship between ASEAN and international law, with a particular focus on land tenure issues.
Valeria serves as member of the executive committee of the Law, Literature and Humanities Association of Australasia, and as co-convener of the Critical Approaches to International Law Interest Group of the European Society of International Law (ESIL). Previously, Valeria has served as co-chair of the History and Theory of International Law Interest Group of the Australian and New Zealand Society of International Law (2022-2025), and as Managing Editor and Editorial Board member of the Australian Feminist Law Journal (2021-2023).
Friday, July 4, 2025
HKU Law Welcomes Prof. James Zeng
Prof. Zeng works on corporate law, the Chinese legal system, and empirical legal studies. His independently authored works have appeared or will appear in highly selective peer-reviewed journals such as the American Journal of Comparative Law, American Business Law Journal, American Bankruptcy Law Journal, International Review of Law and Economics, European Business Organization Law Review, Journal of Environmental Law, Journal of Corporate Law Studies, Peking University Law Journal(中外法學), Global Law Review(環球法律評論), Political Science and Law(政治與法律), and Hong Kong Law Journal, as well as leading student-edited law reviews such as the Columbia Journal of Asian Law, N.Y.U. Journal of Law and Business, University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law, Berkeley Business Law Journal, Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, and Review of Banking and Financial Law. His doctoral dissertation, State Ownership as a Substitute for Costly Regulation, was supported by the Oscar M. Reubhausen Fund at Yale Law School and is currently under contract for publication by Cambridge University Press. He has also conducted research on Chinese corporate law supported by the Early Career Scheme of the Research Grant Council of Hong Kong, China.
Professor Zeng graduated from Yale Law School with an LL.M and a J.S.D. degree. Prior to that Professor Zeng graduated from Peking University (LL.B., B.A. in Economics, Mphil in Law). He passed the National Judicial Examination of China and is admitted to the New York State Bar. Prior to joining HKU, he served as a tenured Associate Professor of Law, Convenor of the Faculty Seminar Series, Deputy Executive Director of the Center for Comparative and Transnational Law, and Deputy Director of the LLM Program at the Faculty of Law, Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Wednesday, July 2, 2025
HKU Law Welcomes Prof. David Winterton
Prior to his arrival in Hong Kong, David was a Senior Lecturer at the University of Sydney, and prior to that a Lecturer at UNSW and a stipendiary lecturer at St Anne’s College, Oxford. He holds a BSc (Pure Mathematics) and an LLB from UNSW and a BCL (Dist), MPhil and DPhil from the University of Oxford. Additionally, David has spent some time in legal practice in both Sydney (commercial litigation) and New York (Bankruptcy & Restructuring). He is admitted as a legal practitioner in NSW (2006) and as an Attorney in New York (2012).
Wednesday, June 25, 2025
Sida Liu and Gihad Nasr on The City and the North: Canada in the Chicago School of Sociology (The American Sociologist)
Sida Liu, Gihad Nasr
The American Sociologist
Published online: June 2025
Monday, June 23, 2025
Julius Yam and Cora Chan on Oratorical leadership of chief justices in post-handover Hong Kong (ICON)
Julius Yam, Cora Chan
International Journal of Constitutional Law
Published online: May 2025
Friday, June 20, 2025
Technology in the Courtroom (John Liu Profiled in HKU Bulletin)
John Liu
HKU Bulletin
Published in May 2025
Wednesday, June 18, 2025
New book by Shiling Xiao on Judicial Review in Greater China (Routledge)
Shiling Xiao (PhD Graduate)
Routledge
Published in June 2025
260 pp.
Monday, June 16, 2025
Seung Mann BAE on The Nature of Plurality Decisions: A Theoretical Reassessment (2025 Junior Scholars Conference)
Friday, June 13, 2025
Weixia Gu comments on the establishment of the International Organization for Mediation
Jess Ma, Jeffie Lam, Harvey Kong
South China Morning Post
31 May 2025
Hong Kong made a groundbreaking move on Friday (30 May 2025) when it became the headquarters for a new intergovernmental mediation body but the unit’s real tests will be in the types of substantive cases it handles and whether more countries will join the convention, experts have said.
While the China-led International Organisation for Mediation launched on Friday with 33 signatories, and the conspicuous absence of major Western countries, leading lawyers said they expected more nations would join once the body’s work was promoted.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi was front and centre at a high-level ceremony for countries to formally sign as founding members of the organisation…
Asked about the participating countries, former justice minister Teresa Cheng Yeuk-wah stressed that each one was an equal entity that should not be judged as “big or small”…
Hong Kong’s traditional rival Singapore had earlier spearheaded the formation of the Singapore Convention on Mediation, a treaty which came into force in 2020 and governs the enforcement of mediation outcomes in international commercial disputes.
The two world superpowers – China and the United States – were among the 46 nations that signed the multilateral treaty in 2019, alongside countries such as Britain, Japan and Australia.
Gu Weixia, an associate professor of the University of Hong Kong’s law faculty, said that the Singapore convention was a treaty led by the UN Commission on International Trade Law and acted as an enforcement tool for mediation outcomes.
“Its scope of application is comparatively restrictive,” she explained.
“It only targets international commercial mediation, and it only affects enforcement [of mediation settlement agreements].”
Gu, a dispute resolution specialist, also highlighted that more than 40 countries had signed the treaty, but only 18 had ratified it. Singapore and Japan are the only developed nations to have ratified the convention.
She said the International Organisation for Mediation has a wider scope of application, including interstate and investor-state disputes. It also offers additional options for legal services in the city.
“Most international legal capitals are in the West, such as The Hague, Geneva, New York and Washington,” Gu said. “The International Organisation for Mediation established in Hong Kong is a big booster for the city’s status in international law.”
Click here to read the full text on SCMP website.
Wednesday, June 11, 2025
Dr Alex Huang won Gold Medal in International Insolvency Institute 2025 Prize in International Insolvency Studies
Monday, June 9, 2025
Lusina Ho and Hui Jing on The Dominance of Regulatory Oversight in Chinese Investment Trusts (Asia-Pacific Trusts Law, Volume 3)
"The Dominance of Regulatory Oversight in Chinese Investment Trusts"
Lusina Ho and Hui Jing
Asia-Pacific Trusts Law, Volume 3, Boundaries in Context, Part II, Chapter 10
Hart Publishing
Published online: May 2025
Thursday, June 5, 2025
Kelvin Low and Peter Watts on The Case for Cryptoassets as Property (New book chapter)
Peter Watts, Kelvin Low
in Law at the Cutting Edge: Essays in Honour of Sarah Worthington, edited by Sinéad Agnew and Marcus Smith (Bloomsbury Publishing, April 2024), Chapter 14, pp. 281 - 299
Abstract: Cryptoassets, introduced in the wake of the Great Recession (2007-2009), have proven to be very divisive. Embraced by some as part of a revolutionary future, they are derided by others as the misconceived fever dream of naïve technologists who don’t understand how the real world works. Despite a recent meltdown in the cryptoasset markets, or perhaps because of it, the courts will increasingly have to resolve disputes over cryptoassets. An important question that has dramatic implications on how such disputes are resolved is, “Should cryptoassets be considered property?” In this bifurcated contribution, two contrasting positions are taken. “The Case for Cryptoassets as Property” presents the case for classifying cryptoassets as property, arguing that it greatly simplifies dispute resolution. “Better Left to the Legislature?”, on the other hand, disputes the capacity of the courts to do so. It is our shared hope that, through this adversarial process, we shine a clearer light on the arguments that judges and other lawmakers ought to consider as they face the coming deluge of disputes.
Please click here to read the book chapter on SSRN.
Thursday, May 29, 2025
Weixia Gu spoke at International Arbitration Symposium at Cornell Law School
International Arbitration Symposium Provides Better Understanding of International Arbitration![]() |
Pictured (from left to right): Dr. Yuh-Ming Yan, Dr. Weixia Gu, Bianca Lin, and Professor Yun-chien Chang |
Wednesday, May 21, 2025
Sida Liu and Joonsik Kim on About the Patient Named Taiwan: The Rise of Doctors in Party Politics (Journal of Contemporary Asia)
Joonsik Kim, Sida Liu
Journal of Contemporary Asia
Published online: April 2025
Monday, May 19, 2025
New edited book by Daniel Bell on Being Chinese, Becoming Chinese (The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press)
Edited by Daniel Bell
The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press
300 pp.
Friday, May 16, 2025
New edited Chinese book by Say Goo and Shen Wei on FinTech and Legal Evolution: Credit, Currency, and AI (Shanghai Jiao Tong University)
主編(Edited by): 沈偉 (Shen Wei), 吳世學 (Say Goo)
上海交通大學 (Shanghai Jiao Tong University)
出版日期 (Publication date):March 2025
Wednesday, May 14, 2025
Book review of Allison Powers's Arbitrating Empire: United States Expansion and the Transformation of International Law by Jedidiah Kroncke
Jedidiah Kroncke
Jotwell - The Journal of Things We Like (Lots)
Published online: March 2025
Wednesday, April 30, 2025
Douglas Arner et al on Centralization in Decentralized Finance: Systemic Risk in the Crypto Ecosystem and Crypto’s Future as a Regulated Industry (Law and Contemporary Problems)
"Centralization in Decentralized Finance: Systemic Risk in the Crypto Ecosystem and Crypto’s Future as a Regulated Industry"
Douglas W Arner, Tanvi Ratna, Sijuade Animashaun, Jatin Bedi, Naveen Mishra
Law and Contemporary Problems, Volume 87, Number 2 (2025), pp. 185 - 210
Published online: April 2025
Introduction: A paradigm shift is manifesting in the global crypto ecosystem. Akin to traditional financial systems, crypto markets have developed networks of complex interrelationships between infrastructures, intermediaries and market participants. As an example, the events of the so-called “Crypto Winter” of 2022-2023, which began in early 2022 with the crash of sister tokens USDTerra and Luna and resulted in a series of cascading failures and collapses including that of the major crypto conglomerate FTX, underscore the significant potential that interconnection, interdependencies, concentration and contagion have in the evolving ecosystem. Compared to traditional finance, which is underpinned by a wide range of regulatory and supervisory interventions of central banks and other international and domestic regulatory bodies, the crypto ecosystem has until recently remained largely unregulated. This however is changing rapidly in major economies around the world and is expected to change as well in the United States, as crypto increasingly becomes a regulated industry.
The crypto ecosystem is typically described as and characterized by decentralization and disintermediation. We have seen a range of situations however where the system does not operate in this way......
(click here to view full article)