The political economy of recasting the constitutional debate in Hong Kong

People obtain value, or gain utility, from procedures rather than merely from outcomes. Academic researchers are slowly and selectively coming to terms with this fact, but it is neither sufficiently nor widely appreciated by actors in Hong Kong's political arena, whether at the center or on the periphery. The territory is grappling with the issue of democratic reform— both its pace and scope— but the heated exchanges between the proponents and the opponents of representative government are confined to the outcome utility of the various constitutional proposals. It is essential to incorporate the procedural element into this incomplete picture

The institutional foundations of environmental governance regimes: The implications of Chinese practices

Ecological threats continue to proliferate at a worrisome pace and in many circumstances defy efforts to neutralize them. Mounting concerns about the gap between the scale of biophysical disruption and policy performance have stimulated both academic and engineering-type interest in the effectiveness/ consequences of environmental governance regimes. An issue which has not received sufficient attention is the degree to which such regulatory mechanisms are in tune with their socio-institutional setting rather than merely the natural systems which they aim to safeguard. China’s experience suggests that this is a question which merits close examination

The transfer of property rights from the public to the private sector in Hong Kong: A critical assessment

The privatization idea may have lost some of its luster in recent years, but it remains relevant in today’s socio-economic environment and is pursued consistently in industrialized and industrializing countries alike. Hong Kong has followed the general pattern in a manner reflecting its particular circumstances and its institutional modus operandi. The underlying logic may not appear highly compelling, from a short-term perspective, yet there are sound grounds for approaching the task positively, if viewed from a multi-year standpoint. Rather surprisingly, for such a quintessentially capitalist society, Hong Kong has not confronted the privatization challenge astutely on the political front and has handled it somewhat mechanically in managerial terms. The benefits to the community may have thus been more modest than one could legitimately expect, given the historical backdrop

The political economy of Hong Kong's "open skies" legal regime: an empirical and theoretical exploration

Copyright 2009 San Diego International Law Journal. Reprinted with the permission of the San Diego International Law Journal.The article presents an empirical and theoretical research which describes the functions of the international legal regime through powerful economic forces in Hong Kong, China. The government applied aviation policies with respect to open skies platform to provide a basis for a thorough understanding of government's legitimacy based on neoclassical logic and analysis. Conceptual perspectives of realists, liberals and cognitivists were acknowledged by the economically-inspired nationalists

The political economy of loose regulation: Modernity meets tradition in Hong Kong

Hong Kong is a fascinating social laboratory where one can observe the interplay between powerful forces of modernization and deeply-entrenched pre-industrial consumption patterns. For decades, the former had not encroached on the autonomy of grassroots-style forms of health care, but the enactment of the Chinese Medicine Ordinance in 1999 has brought the latter under the grip of the state, albeit in the weak sense of the term. This particular episode may offer insights into the dynamics of the two-way adjustment that takes place when the divergent paths of the mainstream and traditional sectors inevitably cross, prompting regulatory and developmental responses

International law in HKSAR courts

The transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong notwithstanding, courts in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) will continue to face questions about the application and enforcement of international law in the Territory in a wide range of areas, including human rights, treatment of aliens, diplomatic/consular immunities, protection and preservation of the natural environment, jurisdiction over crime/extradition, maritime law, commercial transactions, and transportation. This Article will review local judicial approaches in light of available international practice with the aim of extrapolating the relevant principles that will govern the relationship between international law and the domestic law in post-1997 Hong Kong

The joint declaration and the CFA agreement

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