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.

Alec Stone Sweet Co-Authored article "Reversing delegation? Politicization, de-delegation, and non-majoritarian institutions" achieved the top 10 most-cited papers published in Governance

Congratulations to Alec Stone Sweet whose co-authored the article "Reversing delegation? Politicization, de-delegation, and non-majoritarian institutions", achieved the top 10 most-cited papers published in Governance during the period 1 January 2022 to 31 December 2023. Governance provides a forum for the theoretical and empirical study of executive politics, public policy, administration, and the organization of the state. Published in association with International Political Science Association's Research Committee on the Structure & Organization of Government (SOG), it emphasizes peer-reviewed articles that take an international or comparative approach to public policy and administration.

Alec Stone Sweet et al on Reversing Delegation? Politicization, De-delegation, and Non-majoritarian Institutions (Governance)

"Reversing delegation? Politicization, de-delegation, and non-majoritarian institutions"
Mark Thatcher, Alec Stone Sweet, and Bernardo Rangoni
Governance

Volume 36, Issue 1,
p. 5-22

Published in October 2022
https://doi.org/10.1111/gove.12709 

Abstract: Elected governments and states have delegated extensive powers to non-majoritarian institutions (NMIs) such as independent central banks and regulatory agencies, courts, and international trade and investment organizations, which have become central actors in governance. But, far from having resolved the balance between political control and governing competence or removed certain issues from political debate, NMIs have faced challenges to their legitimacy by elected officials and sometimes attempts to reverse delegation through “de-delegation”. Our special issue studies the politicization of NMIs, and then whether, why and how it leads to de-delegation through reducing the formal powers of NMIs or increasing controls over them. In this article, we examine how to analyze de-delegation, how politicization of NMIs has developed, and how it has affected de-delegation. We underline not only institutional rules that constrain elected officials but also the actions of NMIs themselves and their relationships with other NMIs as part of multi-level governance systems. We find that politicization has varied, but even when strong, elected officials have not introduced widespread and long-lasting de-delegation; on the contrary, they have frequently widened the powers of NMIs. Insofar as elected politicians have sought to curb NMIs, they have often preferred to use existing controls and non-compliance. Finally, we consider the wider implications of the combination of politicization and lack of de-delegation for broader issues of governance such as the division of powers between the elected and unelected and democratic accountability.

New Book edited by Ulrike Davy & Albert Chen: Law and Social Policy in the Global South: Brazil, China, India, South Africa (Routledge)

 Law and Social Policy in the Global South:
Brazil, China, India, South Africa
Edited by Ulrike Davy & Albert Chen

Routledge

Published in December 2022

280 pp.

Description: The book is an in-depth study of the origins and the trajectories of the law governing social policies in Brazil, China, India, and South Africa, four middle-income countries in the global South with a history in social policy making that starts in the 1920s.

     The policies of these countries affect almost half of the world’s population. The book takes the legal framework of the policies as a starting point, but the main interest lies behind the letter of the law: What were the objectives and goals of social policy over the course of the last 100 years? What were the ideas, ideologies, and values pursued by relevant actors? The book comprises four country studies and a comparative study. The country studies concentrate on the political and social context of social policy making in Brazil, China, India, and South Africa as well as on the ideas, ideologies, and values underpinning the constitution, statutory laws, and case law that frame and shape social policy at the national level. The country studies are complemented by a comparative study exploring and describing the commonalities and differences in the ideational approaches to social policies across the four countries, nationally and – in the formative decades – internationally. The comparative study also identifies the characteristics that make Brazilian, Chinese, Indian, and South African social policies distinct from European social policies. With its emphasis on law and drawing on legal scholarship, the book adds a new dimension to the existing accounts on welfare state building, which, so far, are dominated by European narratives and by scholars with a background in sociology, political science, and development studies.

     This book is relevant to specialists and peers and will be invaluable to those individuals interested in the fields of comparative and international social security law, human rights law, comparative constitutional law, constitutional history, law and development studies, comparative social policies, global social policies, social work, and welfare state theory.

He Xin on Guanxi and Law and Society Fieldwork in China (HKLJ)

"Guanxi and Law and Society Fieldwork in China"
He Xin
Hong Kong Law Journal, 

2021, Vol. 51, Part 2 of 2021, pp. 625-644

Abstract: While many scholars have stressed the role of guanxi in conducting law and society fieldwork in China, rarely explored is the relationship between guanxi and other factors such as social class, gender, overseas status and politics. Drawing on two decades of the author’s experience, this article demonstrates that when guanxi operates across political, social and cultural dimensions, it forms tensions that subtly affect who, how and what we access. We are constantly tested, and there are various pitfalls. This article not only sheds light on the challenges and opportunities when doing fieldwork in China but also reflects on the limitations of the knowledge created.