Kelvin Low on ‘Property’ as polyseme and its implications for trust ‘property’ (Journal of Equity)

"‘Property’ as polyseme and its implications for trust ‘property’"
Kelvin Low
Journal of Equity, Volume 18, Part 2, pp. 107 - 130
Published: February 2025

Abstract: The trust may be English law’s “greatest and most distinctive achievement … in the field of jurisprudence” but it is likely to also be its most confounding. A fierce debate - often cast in dualistic terms - has raged for more than a century over whether a beneficiary’s interest under a trust is proprietary or obligational. Upon closer examination, some of the disagreements are less substantive and more semantic. At the heart of this debate lies the ambiguity inherent in the meaning of the word “property” itself. Yet, although equitable “property” may not be identical to legal “property” (indeed, tangible legal “property” is fundamentally different from intangible legal “property”), this does not make it any less properly regarded as “property”. Rather than being a mere mimic or metaphor, equitable “property” simply secures exclusive control to a resource in a different, indirect, manner for equitable “owners”. “Property” is a polyseme, where a word has different meanings but those meanings are related so that even though it is different from legal “property”, it is no less truly “property”. The primary objective of this clarification is to serve as a via media to reconcile some of the apparently opposing views that have arisen in this debate. However, it also pushes back against certain revisionist reforms proposed for equitable “property” that fail to acknowledge the fundamentally different nature of equitable "property" to legal "property". The understanding of equitable “property” proposed also carries implications for the English Law Commission's conception of digital assets as third things that supposedly carry no rights until they are interfered with.

The paper is also available on SSRN, please click here. 

HKU Law Welcomes Prof. Valeria Vázquez Guevara

Welcome to Prof. Valeria Vázquez Guevara, who joins the Faculty of Law as an Assistant Professor.

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).

HKU Law Welcomes Prof. Kelvin F.K. Low

Welcome to Prof. Kelvin F.K. Low, who joins the Faculty of Law as a Professor. 

Kelvin read law at the National University of Singapore and Oxford University. Before his current appointment at the University of Hong Kong, he held previous appointments at National University of Singapore, Singapore Management University, and City University of Hong Kong. 

Kelvin's research interest spans the field of private law but with a particular interest in property, broadly defined. He has published internationally with leading journals such as the American Journal of Comparative Law, the International & Comparative Law Quarterly, Legal Studies, Lloyd’s Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly, the Law Quarterly Review, the Melbourne University Law Review, and the Modern Law Review. He is a co-author (together with Michael Bridge, Louise Gullifer, and Gerard McMeel) of the 2nd and 3rd editions of The Law of Personal Property, and co-author (together with Tang Hang Wu) of the 3rd and 4th editions of Tan Sook Yee’s Principles of Singapore Land Law. His works have been cited by the courts in Australia, Canada, England and Wales, Hong Kong SAR, Malaysia, New Zealand, and Singapore as well as law commissions and law reform bodies in Australia, England and Wales, Ireland, New Zealand, Scotland, and Singapore.

HKU Law Welcomes Dr Taorui Guan, Research Assistant Professor

Welcome to Dr Taorui Guan, Research Assistant Professor at the Department of Law. His research work is primarily concentrated on the development of technology markets, legal reforms in response to emerging technologies, the interplay between intellectual property and finance, and China’s innovation system. He publishes his findings in both Chinese and English. From 2019-2020, he held the Thomas Edison Innovation Law and Policy Fellowship at the Center for Intellectual Property x Innovation Policy of George Mason University. He won the John M. Olin Prize in Law and Economics in 2021.

In the classroom, Dr. Guan instructs students on intellectual property and information technology, copyright law, and Chinese intellectual property law. He also acts as a tutor in a course that provides an introduction to Chinese law.

His academic credentials include an S.J.D. and an LL.M. from the University of Virginia School of Law. During his doctoral studies, he received the Chinese Government Doctoral Scholarship. He also earned an LL.M. in Intellectual Property Law from Renmin University of China, where he was named a Distinguished Graduate and was awarded a National Scholarship for Graduate Students. His initial degrees, a BA in Business English and an LL.B., were obtained from Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, where he was the recipient of the National Scholarship for Undergraduate Students and the First Class Scholarship for two years running.

Having successfully passed the Chinese Judicial Examination, Dr. Guan is also a member of the New York State Bar. His professional affiliations include membership in the Chinese Law Society.

His Research areas include:

• Intellectual Property Law
• Law and Technology
• Chinese Law

Qiao & Hills on "Here’s How Transferable Development Rights Outweigh Lantau Reclamation Plan in Ending Hong Kong Housing Crisis" (SCMP Opinion)

"Here’s how transferable development rights outweigh Lantau reclamation plan in ending Hong Kong housing crisis"

Concrete Analysis by Qiao Shitong and Roderick Hills Jr.

SCMP Opinion

31 March 2021

Housing in Hong Kong is among the least affordable in the world. And the problem is not lack of land, but lack of development. Three quarters of Hong Kong’s land is vacant, and much of this is reasonably buildable territory.

     In particular, Hong Kong contains 1,414 hectares (3,494 acres) of brownfield sites and another 1,200 hectares of country development land reserved for indigenous villagers of the New Territories that is all suitable for high-density residential construction. Click here to read the full text. 

Castellano & Tosato on Personal Property Security Law: International Ambitions and Local Realities (new book chapter)

"Personal Property Security Law: International Ambitions and Local Realities"
Giuliano Castellano & Andrea Tosato
in L Ghia (ed), International Business Law (Wolters Kluwer Int'l, 2019) 283-337
Published in December 2019, U of Penn, Inst for Law & Econ Research Paper No. 20-27
Abstract: Personal property security law is a key element of “access to credit” and “financial inclusion”. The prevailing view is that a legal framework enabling the effective use of personal property as collateral markedly benefits both lenders and borrowers. Lenders can offer financing at a lower cost thanks to reduced credit risk; borrowers can access funding by leveraging the otherwise unavailable value of the assets integral to their operations.
     Over the past century, the priorities of personal property security law have evolved fundamentally. As small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and individual entrepreneurs have become the growth engine of both developed and developing economies, legislators have grown sensitive to the financing needs of these entities. In parallel, the advent of the information society has demanded that lawmakers address squarely the rules governing the use as collateral of intangibles such as “receivables”, “intermediated securities”, “non-intermediated securities”, and “intellectual property rights”, rather than confine their gaze to tangibles such as industrial machinery, mobile equipment and inventory. Concurrently, the increasingly transnational nature of both economic development policies and commercial activity have engendered the need for global principles and standards for asset-based lending.
     To address these novel priorities and promote a healthy and vibrant credit ecosystem, international and regional organizations have undertaken projects aimed at modernizing and harmonizing personal property security law. Over time, these efforts have yielded a panoply of legal instruments. Binding conventions have been adopted to unify the rules of discrete facets of personal property security law, while soft-law texts, such as model laws and legislative guides, have been formulated to supply comprehensive legal templates to lawmakers keen to revise their domestic legal regimes. Nevertheless, states have struggled to assimilate these international efforts into their domestic legal systems. Common law jurisdictions have been loath to abandon the familiarity and safety of the path paved by centuries of case law; in similar vein, civil law jurisdictions have resisted inducements to renovate the normative infrastructure erected by the codifications of the 19th century.
     This Chapter explores the tension between international ambitions and local realities, with a special focus on the issues encountered in civil law jurisdictions. To this end, the case of Italy is examined as a living experiment in comparative personal property security law. In this jurisdiction, the recent enactment of a non-possessory security device, absent a comprehensive reform of the country’s civil code affords important lessons for any civil law system which might be pondering personal property security law reforms. More profoundly, it epitomizes the gap that separates the aspirations of international legal instruments from their effective implementation in domestic contexts. This analysis is divided into two parts. The first reviews international and regional legal initiatives that have shaped the personal property law landscape and then identifies a set of core tenets shared among them. In the second part, attention shifts to Italy, scrutinizing both the personal property security legal edifice originally constructed in this jurisdiction and the attempts to overhaul it that have taken place over the past three decades. This is followed by a critical appraisal of the current state of the law, by reference to the aforementioned core tenets of personal property law reform.

Wendell Pritchett & Shitong Qiao on Exclusionary Megacities (Southern California L Rev)

"Exclusionary Megacities"
Wendell Pritchett & Shitong Qiao
Southern California Law Review
March 2018, Vol. 91, Issue 3, pp. 467-522

Abstract: Human beings should live in places where they are most productive, and megacities, where information, innovation, and opportunities congregate, would be the optimal choice. Yet megacities in both China and the United States are excluding people by limiting the housing supply. Why, despite their many differences, is the same type of exclusion happening in both Chinese and U.S. megacities? Urban law and policy scholars argue that Not-In-My-Back-Yard (“NIMBY”) homeowners are taking over megacities in the U.S. and hindering housing development. They pin their hopes on an efficient growth machine that makes sure “above all, nothing gets in the way of building.” Yet the growth-dominated megacities of China demonstrate that relying on business and political elites to provide affordable housing is a false hope. Our comparative study of the homeowner-dominated megacities of the U.S. and growth-dominated megacities of China demonstrates that the origin of exclusionary megacities is not a choice between growth elites and homeowners, but the exclusionary nature of property rights. Our study reveals that megacities in the two countries share a property-centered approach, which prioritizes the maximization of existing property interests and neglects the interests of the ultimate consumersof housing, resulting in housing that is unaffordable. Giving housing consumers a voice in land use control and urban governance becomes the last resort to counteract this result. This comparative study shows that the conventional triangular framework of land use—comprising government, developers, and homeowners—is incomplete, and argues for a citizenship-based approach to urban governance.  Click here to read the full article.

Shitong Qiao Awarded the First Masahiko Aoki Award for Economics Paper

Congratulations to Shitong Qiao who was awarded the first Masahiko Aoki Award for Economics Paper for his book, Chinese Small Property: The Co-Evolution of the Law and Social Norms, published by Cambridge University Press in 2017.

      The Masahiko Aoki Award for Economics Paper was established in honor of Professor Masahiko Aoki, Professor Emeritus of Stanford University, the famous economist, co-founder of Center for Industrial Development and Environmental Governance (CIDEG) at Tsinghua University and former former joint chairperson of CIDEG Academic Committee, with a view to excavate and encourage Chinese young scholars to conduct academic research concerning public policy and institutional construction, and promote academic research and concrete progress in China’s public governance area. The award is in the name of Prof. Masahiko Aoki to honor his hopes.  The focus is on economics and China’s reform and development.  The award recognises excellent research papers making academic contribution to comparative institutional analysis.  The first Award Ceremony was presented in Beijing on 16 December 2017.  News coverage of the award and ceremony can be found here: Tsinghua University, Nikkei, Sina, and Sohu.

New Book by Shitong Qiao: Chinese Small Property (CUP)

Chinese Small Property: The Co-Evolution of Law and Social Norms
Shitong Qiao
Cambridge University Press
October 2017, 230 pages

Description: Small property houses provide living space to about eight million migrant workers, office space for start-ups, grassroots police stations and public schools; their contribution to the economic growth and urbanization of a city is immense. The interaction between the small property sector and the formal legal order has a long history and small property has become an established engine of social and legal change. Chinese Small Property presents vivid stories about how institutional entrepreneurs worked together to create an impersonal market outside of the formal legal system to support millions of transactions. Qiao uses an eleven-month fieldwork project in Shenzhen - China's first special economic zone that has grown to a mega city with over fifteen million people - to demonstrate this. A thorough and detailed investigation into small property rights in China, Chinese Small Property is an invaluable source of new information for students and scholars of the field.

• Investigates a market of informal but prevalent real estate in China known as 'small property', providing new information on this growing phenomenon for scholars and policymakers concerned with land reform and urbanization in developing countries
• Presents a detailed explanation of law and market transition in China, based on the author's expertise in Chinese law, property law, and law and social norms, offering a unique case study for China scholars in law schools and wider disciplines
• Proposes a theory of the co-evolution of law and social norms in which social norms bypass laws meaning the interaction mechanism between the fluid law and norms is the focus, which will appeal to property and legal theorists seeking new insights into successful economies such as China

Shitong Qiao and Frank Upham on China's Changing Property Law Landscape (new book chapter)

"China's changing property law landscape"
Shitong Qiao and Frank K Upham
in Michele Graziadei and Lionel Smith (eds), Comparative Property Law Global Perspectives (Edward Elgar 2017) ch 14

Abstract: This chapter provides an outline of the changing Chinese land regime, including the past, present, and future of land expropriation, small or informal property rights, and rural land reform. We argue that the evolution of Chinese land law exhibits three characteristics. First, law serves as the final confirmation of policy reforms, rather than the precondition of the reform. Second, there is no individual land ownership, and public land ownership (including both state land ownership in the urban area and collective land ownership in the rural area) still matters. Third, due to the rapidly changing nature of the Chinese economy and society, property rights in action are often a pale shadow of what their legal entitlements would indicate in theory. As a result of these three characteristics, Chinese land law poses two related challenges to conventional property theory. First is one of the rarely questioned verities of economic theory: that clear, secure, and judicially enforceable property rights are an essential – perhaps the most essential – prerequisite to economic growth. The second question grows directly out of the first. China’s growth has come through voluntary market exchange on a massive scale, and in this sense fully vindicates economic theory. The challenge is to understand how these markets – in our case, the real estate market – operate without the legal framework considered necessary for Coasian bargaining. We propose a relational property theory as one explanation of what has enabled the market, without any legal rules or judicial enforcement, to thrive on a literally global scale. Relational property emphasizes the determinative role of social relations in the construction of property. The most important normative implication is that relational property can function without the full and faithful implementation of formal property law; but property law cannot function without embedding itself in social relations.

HKU International Conference on "Who Owns Your Body?" (6-7 April 2017)

The Centre for Medical Ethics & Law of the University of Hong Kong

in collaboration with

The Centre for Law, Medicine & Life Sciences of The University of Cambridge

and

The Centre of Genomics and Policy of the McGill University

are pleased to announce

A conference on Property Rights in Human Bodies, Tissue and Data, and on Human Organ Transplantation

entitled

"Who Owns Your Body?”

Thursday & Friday, 6–7 April 2017

Large Moot Court, 2/F, Cheng Yu Tung Tower, Centennial Campus,

The University of Hong Kong

Theme

How does the law govern the ownership of your body? And of its parts, and things derived from it? What are the fundamental legal principles governing claims to ownership, possession and other rights in the human body? And what are the ethical, legal and social impact of applications of materials taken from the human body, particularly in the context of human organ transplantation and the responses arising therefrom? This 2-day conference aims to explore these fundamental questions from ethical, legal, medical, religious and social perspectives. It will also identify gaps and inconsistencies in current law and practice; discuss the current tensions between the imperatives of clinical and research use for tissue and information and that of the privacy of the individual and suggest how these tensions may be best bridged to mutual benefit.

Speakers and Roundtable Panelists:
Professor King L. Chow, The Hong Kong University of Science & Technology
Professor Leonardo de Castro, University of the Philippines
Dr Imogen Goold, University of Oxford
Professor Guang Xing, Centre of Buddhist Studies, The University of Hong Kong
Ms Alison Hall, PHG Foundation
Dr Calvin Ho, National University of Singapore
Dr Chih-hsing Ho, Academia Sinica, Taiwan
Professor Terry Kaan, The University of Hong Kong
Professor Bartha Maria Knoppers, McGill Centre of Genomics & Policy, McGill University
Mr Alex Lam, Hong Kong Patients’ Voices
Professor Tohru Masui, Center for Medical Genetics, School of Medicine, Keio University
Mr Colm McGrath, University of Cambridge
Dr Jeff Skopek, University of Cambridge
Dato Dr Zahari Noor, Consultant Forensic Pathologist, Government of Malaysia
Dr Ron Zimmern, PHG Foundation

Details: http://www.cmel.hku.hk/events/who-owns-your-body/
Registration:
Please click the following link :
https://hkuems1.hku.hk/hkuems/ec_hdetail.aspx?guest=Y&ueid= 48384

Your kind assistance in encouraging your colleague/friend participation would be highly appreciated.
If you no longer wish to receive further news and updates from the Faculty of Law, HKU, please click here to unsubscribe. 若閣下日後不想收到有關香港大學法律學院的消息，請按此。

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.

Comment on Wong Chak Sin v Collector of Stamp Revenue - Legislation by Press Release (HKLJ)

"Misfiring the First Judicial Shot at Legislation by Press Release: Wong Chak Sin v Collector of Stamp Revenue"

Chen Jianlin
Hong Kong Law Journal
Dec 2016, Vol 46, Part 3, pp 813-827

Abstract: This analysis critically examines Wong Chak Sin v Collector of Stamp Revenue, the first-ever local judicial decision, dealing with “legislation by press release”. The analysis highlights how both the judge and lawyers in the case failed to appreciate the distinct operating mechanism and practical effects of legislation by press release, and argues that the decision’s holding that the government power to tax is exempted from the requirement of proportionality under Art 105 of the Basic Law is a far-reaching extension of existing judicial precedents that should have been subjected to more circumspect scrutiny.

The Evolution of Chinese Property Law (new book chapter)

"The Evolution of Chinese Property Law: Stick by Stick?"
Shitong Qiao
in YC Chang, W Shen & WY Wang (eds), Private Law in China and Taiwan
Nov 2016, Cambridge University Press, pp 182-211

Abstract: Chinese land reform has managed to maintain and disintegrate state and collective land ownership simultaneously by discarding the unitary conception of ownership. It is consistent with the idea that “property comprises a complex aggregate of social and legal relationships” rather than being “the simple and nonsocial relation between a person and a thing.” Regardless of Chinese legal scholars’ enthusiasm for or leftists’ hatred of the idea of individuals having sole and despotic dominion over private property, law and policy makers of Chinese land reform have often taken a more pragmatic approach, reconfiguring land rights in China “stick by stick.” The two main achievements of Chinese land reform, i.e., the establishment of land use rights (LURs) in the urban area and the establishment of land management and contract rights (LMCRs) in the rural area, are examples of the stick by stick approach. The ideological debate over privatization, in contrast, has more often intensified conflicts within the country’s political system. When such ideological enthusiasm dominates the law-making process, it hampers land reform, as exemplified in the making of the 2007 Property Law. It is therefore misleading to ask who owns and who prevails in the context of Chinese land reform. The better question is how the bundle of sticks is arranged among government, communities, and individuals. This bundle of rights metaphor, or conception of legal relations, as Michael Heller calls it, is useful because society is generating more forms of property than the simple thing-ownership metaphor captures. This chapter also examines the recent policy developments following the third plenum of the 18th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and finds that law and policy makers have stuck to the stick by stick approach. The chapter develops its arguments by reviewing the major property laws and policies over the past three decades to outline the basic contours of the Chinese property system.  Click here to download the chapter.

Richard Cullen on Real Estate Price Inflation - Lessons from Hong Kong

"Real Estate Price Inflation: Lessons from Hong Kong"
Richard Cullen
TLRP Tax Comments, No 3
June 2016

Abstract: The primary purpose of this TLRP Tax Comment is to review the ways in which behavior-modifying fiscal measures – in particular Stamp Duty (or any like impost) – can be deployed to help bring the problem of excessive home-price inflation under greater control. 

     In cities across the developed-world, especially (today) in jurisdictions popular with Mainland Chinese immigrants, there have been deep concerns expressed about rapid, residential real estate price inflation. It is argued that such inflation is putting home ownership beyond the reach of increasing numbers of younger, local residents seeking to buy their first home. In early May, 2016, it was reported that the benchmark price for a house in the Vancouver Region was C$1.41 million (around HK$8.35 million) – up 30.1% in one year. 

     Although the lessons offered by Hong Kong potentially have quite wide application, the principal comparative focus in this essay is on Vancouver, in view of the stand-out nature of the price inflation problem in that city. The essay briefly reviews certain related issues which are associated with this public policy challenge. There also is a short discussion on why the recent innovative use of Stamp Duties in the HKSAR remains compliant with the Basic Law of the HKSAR (BL).

     There is no “magic wand” fix for this set of problems. Hong Kong has, however, done more than most, in an effective way, to bring the problem under a level of control. There is, Richard Cullen argues, much that Vancouver (and other like-affected cities) could learn from the HKSAR.

     Richard Cullen is a Director of the Taxation Law Research Programme (TLRP) within the Asian Institute of International Financial Law (AIIFL) and a Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Law at The University of Hong Kong. He is also an Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Law at The University of Western Australia.  Please download the essay from here or at http://www.law.hku.hk/aiifl/taxation-law-research-programme-tlrp/.

New Issue: SSRN Legal Studies Research Paper Series (HKU)

Vol. 6, No. 1: 14 April 2016

Table of Contents

1. China's Striking Anti-Corruption Adventure: A Political Journey Towards the Rule of Law?

Fu Hualing, The University of Hong Kong - Faculty of Law

2. Anti‐Suit Injunctions and the Doctrine of Comity

Felix Wai Hon Chan, The University of Hong Kong - Faculty of Law

3. The Evolution of Chinese Property Law: Stick by Stick?

Shitong Qiao, University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law

3rd Urban Law Conference (Call for Papers - 29 JUN 2016)

3rd ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL & 

COMPARATIVE URBAN LAW CONFERENCE

Call for Conference Participants

29 June 2016, Hong Kong

The Fordham Urban Law Center, in conjunction with the University of Hong Kong (HKU), is pleased to announce a call for participation in the 3rd Annual International and Comparative Urban Law Conference, to be held on Wednesday, June 29, 2016. The all-day Conference will be held at HKU in Pokfulam, Hong Kong.

TOPICS: The Conference will provide a dynamic forum for legal and other scholars to engage and generate diverse international, comparative, and interdisciplinary perspectives in the burgeoning field of urban law. The Conference will explore overlapping themes, tensions, and opportunities for deeper scholarly investigation and practice with a comparative perspective. The Conference is open to urban law topics across a broad spectrum, such as:

• Structure and workings of local authority and autonomy
• Urban and metropolitan governance and finance
• Economic and community development
• Housing and the built environment
• Urban public health
• Migration and citizenship
• Urban equity and inclusion
• Sustainability

The goal of the Conference is to facilitate an in-depth engagement across sub-specialties within the legal academy to help deepen our understanding of urban law in the twenty-first century.

PROPOSAL PAPER SUBMISSION PROCEDURE: Potential participants in Conference panels should submit a proposal (maximum 500 words) to Nisha Mistry, Director, Fordham Urban Law Center, at urbanlaw@law.fordham.edu. Please put "[name of proposed paper]" in the subject line of your email. If you have a draft paper, please include it with your proposal. Participants do not need to have prepared a formal paper in order to join the program. Please indicate the extent of your funding needs. Due to limited funds, the Center can only award a few partial travel grants for this Conference. Deadline for proposal submissions: January 18, 2016.

PUBLICATION: In 2016, the Urban Law Center will publish two volumes of a multi-year book series compiling cross-cutting global perspectives on law and urbanism, with a core focus on comparative enquiry. This Conference will serve as the basis for the next volume in this series, which will be published by Ashgate (as part of Juris Diversitas), following customary review and selection processes. If you are interested in potential publication, please indicate this interest at the time of your proposal submission.

ABOUT THE URBAN LAW CENTER: The Urban Law Center at Fordham Law School in New York City is committed to investigating the role of the law and legal systems in contemporary urbanism through scholarship, pedagogy, programming, and applied research partnerships. Please visit http://law.fordham.edu/urbanlawcenter.htm for more details about the Center.

ABOUT HKU: The University of Hong Kong is the oldest institution of higher education in the city. As Hong Kong settles into the "one country, two systems" model, the Centre for Chinese Law in HKU is in a prime position to develop an international approach to legal issues facing the governance of a metropolitan center.

FURTHER INFORMATION: Please visit http://www.hku.hk for more details about HKU.

Congratulations to Dr Shitong Qiao on Receiving the Judge Ralph K Winter Prize (Yale Law School)

Congratulations to Dr Shitong Qiao whose JSD dissertation was awarded the Judge Ralph K Winter Prize 2014-15 by Yale Law School. The prize is awarded annually to the best student paper written in law and economics. Dr Qiao's thesis was entitled, "Chinese Small Property: The Co-Evolution of Law and Social Norms". The dissertation investigates a market of informal real estate in China, referenced by the term “small property” (xiaochanquan), as their property rights are smaller/weaker than the big/formal property rights. His dissertation investigates the formation and operation of this market, and how it interacts with the legal system and eventually leads to legal reforms. Based on this case study Dr. Qiao argues that property norms can change more swiftly than property law and serve as imperfect institutional infrastructure for market transition. His dissertation also develops a model for the co-evolution of property law and norms with particular implications for developing countries. Click here for some of Dr Qiao's recent research outputs.

Shitong Qiao and Frank Upham on Chinese Rural Law Reform (Iowa Law Review)

"The Evolution of Relational Property Rights: A Case of Chinese Rural Law Reform"
Shitong Qiao and Frank Upham
Iowa Law Review
August 2015, Vol. 100, pp 2479-2506

Abstract: The most notable, or at least the most noted, form of property evolution has been the transfer of exclusive rights from collectives to individuals and vice versa, such as the farm collectivization in Soviet Union and the establishment of the People’s Communes in Mao’s China and their reversals. Such radical moments, however, constitute only a small part of history. For the most part, property rights evolve quietly and incrementally, which is hard to explain if we take exclusive rights as the core of property, or, to put it more generally, if we are focusing solely on the question of who owns the things. To describe the evolution of property rights in China, we employ the concept of relational property. It is a concept that is heavily influenced by Joseph William Singer’s “social relations model” and Ian Macneil’s “relational contract” and, in particular, their emphasis on the determinative role of social relations in the construction of property and contract rights. The bundle of sticks metaphor is at the heart of relational property because it recognizes that property rights can be, and often are, disaggregated as they adapt to changing social, economic, and technological demands. As we show in the context of the reform of Chinese rural land, the combination of the metaphor of separable interests — the sticks in the bundle — and the dependence of property interests on social relationships can explain the evolution of property rights more accurately than a perspective that stresses a single central meaning of property.  Click here to download the full article.

Shitong Qiao on the Illegal "Small Property" in Shenzhen (Am J of Comp Law)

"Small Property, Big Market: A Focal Point Explanation"
Shitong Qiao
American Journal of Comparative Law
2015, Vol. 63, No. 1, pp. 197-238

Abstract: This article investigates the formation and operation of a market of informal real estate in China, referred to by the term “small property” (xiaochanquan), as their property rights are “smaller” (weaker) than those of the “big” (formal) property market. In the city of Shenzhen, which experienced exponential population growth from 300,000 to more than ten million between 1978 and 2010 as the first experimental site of China’s market reforms, almost half of the buildings are small-property constructions. These illegal buildings, which lack legal titles and are concentrated in 320 intra-city villages, house most of the 8 million migrant workers in Shenzhen and are the main source of livelihood of the more than 300,000 local villagers. 

     The underlying question is how to coordinate people’s behaviors in the absence of centralized law. A problem of coordination arises when players have to combine their actions in a certain way among multiple possibilities. In other words, coordination games have multiple equilibria, and therefore the payoffs alone do not determine the behavioral outcome. Instead, the final outcome depends on the specific social settings and individual participants involved, leaving room for less concrete variables, such as history and politics, to impact individuals’ choices. Nobel Laureate Thomas Schelling first observed that, in situations requiring coordination, anything that makes salient one behavioral means of coordinating tends to produce self-fulfilling expectations that then lead to the occurrence of that result. This salient solution is called a focal point. The essential idea of the focal point is that the intrinsic magnetism of particular outcomes makes them qualitatively differentiable from the continuum of possible alternatives. 

     Set against the backdrop and context of China’s market transition, this research discovers that the political, legal, and economic transition in Shenzhen made rural land development and transfer the focal point, despite its illegality. This focal point coordinates players’ expectations to converge on the same equilibrium in the formation and operation of the small-property market. I model the formation of the small-property market as an Assurance Game among social entrepreneurs in Shenzhen, the demolition risk as a Hawk-Dove Game between the Shenzhen government and farmers, and contract risk as a Hawk-Dove Game between a buyer and a seller. This research enriches our understanding of market institutions by applying up-to-date insights from coordination games and focal point theory. It also contributes a significant real world example to the theories of coordination games and focal points, most of which are based on laboratory experiments.  Click here to download the article from SSRN.