Now governed by China under the rubric “one country, two systems“, Hong Kong has a strong tradition of the rule of law – a key feature that distinguishes it from China. However, concerns over whether Hong Kong can maintain this distinctiveness in light of apparently-increasing Chinese security advances are intensifying, partly due to renewed calls...
Administrative Law as a Modest Guardian of the Rule of Law
This paper considers the role of HK courts and common law administrative law principles in combating encroachments on HK‘s rule of law from national security laws. The courts have two main roles. 1) Entrenching a position for themselves in the interpretation of Article 23. 2) Checking and balancing against the executive‘s enforcement and implementation of...
Equality, Diversity and Pluralism: Examining Spaces for the Preservation of Minority Rights and Multiple Identities in the Struggle for National Identity and Security
National security policies in the post-9/11 world reveal a dangerous turn towards the politics of fear, especially in the wake of frequent attacks by ‘home-grown terrorists‘. Viewed from the prism of identity politics, particularly ethnonational pluralism, I take a three-pronged approach to examining the impact of national security policies on identity pluralism. I interrogate the...
Implementing Article 23 of the Hong Kong Basic Law: International Law and Institutions as Sources of Resilience
Although Beijing likes to refer to HK as a “domestic“ matter, international law is at the heart of HK‘s constitutional order and must be considered in any attempt to implement Article 23 of HK‘s Basic Law. I begin by reviewing HK‘s status on the UN‘s list of non-self-governing territories, which created a presumption that residents...
Old Law in New Bottles: Reintroducing National Security Legislation in Hong Kong
Fifteen years have passed since the shelving of the National Security (Legislative Provisions) Bill by the HK government after mass protests. There have been no indications of when new legislative proposals might be introduced or the possible shape of such proposals. It is argued that, while the 2003 bill can serve as a starting point...