China’s Sharp Power: Authoritarian Rule of Law in Hong Kong

China’s Sharp Power: Authoritarian Rule of Law in Hong Kong, talk by Benny Yiu-ting Tai

Abstract

The Chinese Communist Regime promotes a very thin conception of the rule of law in Hong Kong as the official understanding of the rule of law. Maintaining social order is presented to be the overriding function of law even at the costs of granting arbitrary powers to government officials and restricting fundamental rights of citizens disproportionately. This narrow understanding of the rule of law is being used to legitimise the use of law to disqualify legislators and candidates in the opposition, to generate a chilling effect in the society, to weaken political groups in Hong Kong and to introduce measures that will hurt the autonomy of Hong Kong.

Speaker Biography

Benny Yiu-ting TAI was born and educated in Hong Kong. He graduated at the University of Hong Kong and got his LL.B. in 1986 and P.C.LL. in 1987. In 1989, he went to London to study at the London School of Economics and Political Science and obtained his LL.M. (major in public law) in 1990. In 1991, he joined the Department of Law of the University of Hong Kong as a lecturer/assistant professor and is now an associate professor in Law at the University of Hong Kong. He specialises in constitutional law, administrative law, human rights law and law and religion. He was the Associate Dean of the Faculty of Law, the University of Hong Kong from 2000 to 2008. His current research projects include the rule of law and legal culture, political legitimacy and constitutional development, governance and law, law and religion. He was one of the initiators of the Occupy Central with Love and Peace campaign, a movement to exert pressure on the Chinese authorities to honour the promise of allowing Hong Kong people to elect their Chief Executive in 2017 through universal and equal suffrage. 

About the Human Rights, Development and Global Justice Series

Our series aims to create an open, interdisciplinary academic platform for the discussion of issues related to human rights, development and global justice. Special attention is given to the global south, but not to the exclusion of other places.

We hope to generate exchanges furthering academic insight and creativity, to strengthen the School’s connections with scholars around the world, and to enrich undergraduate and postgraduate teaching curricula among the School’s wide offering of modules related to the jurisprudence of human rights, transnational human rights, and global justice more widely.

The events series is currently convened by Professor Eva Pils. It is supported by funding provided by The Dickson Poon School of Law.