Amanda Whitfort on Hong Kong’s Leading Role in the Global Extinction Crisis, as Hub of Illegal Wildlife Trade, and the Legal Amendment that could Change that (SCMP)

"Hong Kong’s leading role in the global extinction crisis, as hub of illegal wildlife trade, and the legal amendment that could change that"

SCMP Lifestyle

23 April 2021

• The scales and carcasses of tens of thousands of pangolins are shipped illegally through Hong Kong every year
• Existing laws do little to stem this trade, but a proposed law change to treat wildlife smuggling as organised crime could make a big difference

Pangolins have clever defence mechanisms. When threatened they curl up into a tight ball – the name pangolin is derived from the Malay word pengguling, meaning “one who rolls up” – the hard scales covering their bodies overlap to create an “armour”. Like skunks, pangolins can spray a noxious fluid from glands near their anuses to keep predators at bay.

      Sadly these protective tools can’t deter humans, who have poached the anteater-like creatures to near-extinction, the trade fuelled by false claims in traditional Chinese medicine that pangolin scales relieve ailments from asthma to poor kidney function, and can improve lactation. On top of that, in China and Vietnam pangolin meat is considered a delicacy. 

...

     The legislative reform, says Amanda Whitfort, associate professor of law at the University of Hong Kong, would facilitate the use of powers by enforcement authorities to tackle wildlife crime that are currently reserved for serious crimes such as drug and arms trafficking.

      It would allow the investigation of persons or materials with connections to organised crime as well as the confiscation of proceeds of crimes, she says, and could serve as a powerful disincentive to wildlife criminals, preventing the reinvestment of profits to fund further criminal activities.

... Click here to read the full text. 

Melissa Loja Presents Paper at 112th American Society of International Law Annual Meeting

PhD student Melissa Loja presented a paper on the New Voices in International Law panel of the 112th Annual Meeting of the American Society of International Law in Washington DC from 4-7 April 2017. Based on work done for her dissertation, Ms Loja’s presentation focused on the legal significance of international agreements between non-state actors. She discussed international agreements that national petroleum corporations, such as Petronas, PetroVietnam, PetroleumBrunei and China National Offshore Oil Corporations, enter into to manage disputes over petroleum resources that are shared by states across maritime zones and boundaries.

    The panel commentator, Professor Laurence Helfer, Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of International Law, remarked that Ms Loja’s paper makes a concrete and original contribution to international law, because it presents primary data that have not been made known before, and it enables a granular examination of actual practices in international law.

Jianlin Chen on Optimal Property Rights for Emerging Natural Resources (UMJ Law Reform)

"Optimal Property Rights for Emerging Natural Resources: A Case Study on Owning Atmospheric Moisture"

Jianlin Chen

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Fall 2016, Vol. 50, No. 1, pp 47-105

Abstract: This Article critically examines the design of property rights for emerging natural resources—naturally occurring substances that humans have only recently come to be able to exploit viably—through a case study of how the fifty states allocate ownership in, and regulate the use of, atmospheric moisture, an issue that has emerged in the context of weather modification (particularly cloud seeding). Building on the surprising finding that legislative declarations of state ownership have not resulted in greater regulatory control or other substantial restrictions on private use, this Article highlights a dimension of property rights design that has yet to receive concerted scholarly attention: the relative ease of future transitions— transitions both in ownership and in control mechanisms. This Article explains how state property facilitates easier and more holistic transitions and argues that state property can be an optimal allocation of emerging natural resources, because uncertainty surrounding the viability of present uses of the resource suggests that property rights arrangements may need to be changed in the foreseeable future. More broadly, the case study reveals how state property—properly stripped of its undeserved associations with socialism—still has an important role to play in property rights literature.  Click here to download the full article.