HKLII Launches New Database: Hong Kong Treaty Series

Users of the Hong Kong Legal Information Institute (HKLII) will be pleased to know a  new resource has been added.  Hong Kong Treaty Series is an electronically searchable database containing the full text of 

(1) arrangements with the Macao SAR, 

(2) arrangements with the Mainland China, 

(3) bilateral agreements with other jurisdictions and 

(4) treaties that are applicable to Hong Kong. 

     Distinctively the database can be viewed and searched alphabetically, by year, category, countries, international organizations and bodies and keywords. HKLII users can now locate treaties and international agreements applicable to Hong Kong in a one-stop portal.  HKLII thanks the Hong Kong Department of Justice for providing access to the relevant data.  This project is supported by the HKU Knowledge Exchange Fund.

Eric Ip on the Foreign Relations Law of Hong Kong and Macau (ICLQ)

"Comparative Subnational Foreign Relations Law in the Chinese Special Administrative Regions"

Eric C Ip
October 2016, Vol. 64, Issue 4, pp. 953-968

Abstract: The increasing importance of subnational governments in interstate affairs calls for international and comparative law scholars to take subnational foreign relations law more seriously. This article conceives this law as the legal rules that regulate the vertical allocation of foreign relations powers within and across States, and constructs an analytical framework that addresses the questions of why any sovereign would grant extensive foreign relations powers to constituent entities and how such an arrangement plays out in actual practice. This study takes a comparative approach to case studies of the Special Administrative Regions (SARs) of the People's Republic of China: Hong Kong and Macau, which are known for their unusually extensive paradiplomatic powers, which not only defy conventional categories but also surpass those of other substates.