New Book by Gonzalo Villalta Puig & Eric Ip: The Freest Market in the World: The Constitutional Logic of Economic Liberty in China's Hong Kong (Routledge)

The Freest Market in the World: The Constitutional Logic of Economic Liberty in China's Hong Kong

Gonzalo Villalta Puig & Eric Ip
Routledge
Published on 22 February 2023
204 pp.

Book Description: On the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China, this book presents the first monographic study of the Hong Kong Basic Law as an economic document. The Basic Law codifies what Gonzalo Villalta Puig and Eric C Ip call free market constitutionalism, the logic of Hong Kong’s economic liberty as the freest market economy in the world.

     This book, which is the outcome of several years of study with the financial support of the General Research Fund of Hong Kong’s Research Grants Council, evaluates the public choice rationale of the Basic Law and its projection on the Hong Kong economy, with a focus on the policy development of economic liberty both internally and externally. In the academic tradition of James M Buchanan’s constitutional political economy, the book opens with a conceptualisation of free market constitutionalism in Hong Kong. It studies the origins of this concept in the 19th-century classically liberal common law and how it developed into a Hayekian laissez-faire convention under British colonial rule, was codified into the Basic Law and is interpreted and applied by the branches of the Government of the Region. The book closes with remarks on the future of Hong Kong’s free market constitutionalism in face of recent challenges as the year 2047 approaches and the 50 years of ‘unchanged’ capitalist system under the Basic Law pass.

     This book will appeal to students, scholars and practitioners of law, economics, political science and public administration. It will especially appeal to those with an interest in Hong Kong law, international economic law or comparative constitutional law.

Reviews:

‘[G]overnments and regulators often appear to me to forget that the volume and complexity of laws and regulations, or the level of tax, should not be such as to deter commercial activity and stifle entrepreneurism. … As the authors of this book show, Hong Kong is not in danger of falling into this particular trap: the Region is unusual in the extent to which it leaves people in the financial and commercial worlds free to carry on their businesses as they see fit without extensive legislative or regulatory interference or excessive taxation.’

The Right Honourable the Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury, Non-Permanent Judge of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal; former President of The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.

‘[T]he present volume makes an original and unique contribution to both the international and domestic understanding of the essence of the "Hong Kong system" that constitutes one of the "Two Systems" under "One Country, Two Systems". The authors point out that from the legal and constitutional point of view, the Hong Kong system is one of "free market constitutionalism".’

Professor Albert HY Chen, Cheng Chan Lan Yue Professor of Constitutional Law at The University of Hong Kong; Member of the Committee for the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region under the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China.

Hualing Fu & Michael Hor on Introduction: Re-balancing Freedom and Security in Post-NSL Hong Kong (new book chapter)

"Introduction: Re-balancing Freedom and Security in Post-NSL Hong Kong"
Hualing Fu & Michael Hor 
in The National Security Law of Hong Kong: Restoration and Transformation,

Edited by Hualing Fu & Michael Hor (Hong Kong University Press, July 2022),
Chapter 1, pp. 1-19
Introduction: This book offers a dialogic study of the Law of the People's Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security Law (NSL) in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR).  It examines the text and the context of the NSL, what caused it and what it has caused, and highlights the changes - real, potential or merely imagined - that the NSL has brought and is likely to bring to Hong Kong.  Constitutional development is not brought about by isolated events but by a series of connected episodes that have taken place over a long duration with each act done in response to an earlier one and, in turn, generating future dialectical reactions in multiple fields, some contemplated and others unforeseen, or perhaps, still unforeseeable.  It is a complicated process and emotions may run high, but there is always a logic to be discovered and explained to make sense of what, at first sight, appear to be chaotic, random occurrences.  This book studies the political and constitutional roots of the NSL as well as its practical operation in Hong Kong.  The book also attempts to view the NSL in the larger Chinese, and comparative law, perspectives.  
         This introductory chapter first situates the enactment of the NSL in the context of Hong Kong's own constitutional context and in particular, the failed attempt to enact Hong Kong national security law in 2003 as required by the Basic Law (BL), and the tortuous path of democratic pursuit that Hong Kong had trodden.  The chapter then explores the constitutional and political roots of the NSL in the Chinese constitutional order.  Part Three addresses several key issues on the impact of the NSL on the legal system, academic freedom, business, and media among others.  Finally, part four assesses the future prospects of Hong Kong's one country two systems doctrine (OCTS) and Hong Kong's freedoms under rule of law in the post NSL era, assessed from a comparative perspective by referencing the development in national security law in mainland China, Singapore and liberal democracies.

Elaine Yim (MPhil 2021) on "Why Compatriot Partiality Arguments Cannot Support Extensive Immigration Control" (Journal of Social Philosophy)

"Why Compatriot Partiality Arguments Cannot Support Extensive Immigration Control"
Elaine Yim (MPhil 2021)
Journal of Social Philosophy
Published on 13 July 2020

Introduction: Immigration restrictions are common and extensive: almost all states enact their own immigration policies to decide who to admit. Unless constrained by international covenants or transnational agreements, immigration policies are typically based on what state legislators or their delegates perceive to be in the interests of the state and its citizens, with little regard to that of potential immigrants. However, immigration restrictions limit freedoms that protect important interests, including freedom of movement, freedom of association, freedom of occupational choice, and so on. They prevent people from choosing their preferred place of residence, taking up jobs of their own preference, and so on. If restrictions to freedoms that protect important interests require sufficient justification, then the current practices of immigration control ought to be sufficiently justified.