This collection of selected works by Professor Albert H.Y. Chen shows the contours of the author’s scholarship as it developed over 35 years of his academic career, from 1984 to the present. The essays are divided into three sections which cover the three major domains of Professor Chen’s research. Part I covers the legal developments and controversies of “One Country, Two Systems” since the Hong Kong interpretation on “the right of abode” in 1999 to the anti-extradition movement of 2019. Part II shifts to focus on tradition and modernity in Chinese Law, including China’s Confucian and Legalist traditions and how the socialist legal system in China evolved and modernized in the era of “reform and opening”. Part III examines the transplantation of Western thinking and constitutionalism to East Asia in modern times and discusses the achievements and failures of these efforts. In conjunction with an introductory chapter that sets out the basic orientation and paradigm of these legal and constitutional studies and an epilogue that reflects on the main themes, this collection exemplifies the author’s important contributions to the field and provides insight into how the legal orders in Hong Kong and mainland China have changed over the course of Professor Chen’s academic career.
Author Albert H.Y. Chen (陳弘毅) was born in and grew up in Hong Kong. In February 1984, Chen began his academic career as a Lecturer in Law at the University of Hong Kong. He served as Head of the Department of Law in 1993–1996 and as Dean of the Faculty of Law in 1996–2002. He is currently the Cheng Chan Lan Yue Professor in Constitutional Law in the Department of Law.
Professor Chen has, over the years, taught the subjects of legal system and legal method, constitutional law, administrative law, law and society, jurisprudence, the legal system of the People’s Republic of China, Rule of Law in modern China, research methodology, and the use of Chinese in law. In addition to the present work and over 200 journal articles and book chapters in English and Chinese, he has written the following books: Hong Kong’s Legal System and the Basic Law (1986) (in Chinese); Human Rights and the Rule of Law: The Challenges of Hong Kong’s Transition (1987) (in Chinese, co-authored); The Workers’ Compensation System in Hong Kong (1987) (co-authored); Law and Politics in Hong Kong (1990) (in Chinese); The Rule of Law, Enlightenment and the Spirit of Modern Law (1998) (in Chinese); The World of Legal Theory (2003) (in Chinese); Hong Kong’s Search for the Rule of Law under “One Country, Two Systems” (2010) (in Chinese); and The World of Constitutional Jurisprudence (2014) (in Chinese). He is also a co-editor or editor of several books in English and Chinese, including The Basic Law and Hong Kong’s Future (1988); General Principles of Hong Kong Law (3rd Edition, 2015) (in Chinese); Administrative Law and Governance in Asia (2009); Legal Reforms in China and Vietnam (2010); Public Law in East Asia (2013); Constitutionalism in Asia in the Early Twenty-First Century (2014); Perspectives on the Hong Kong Basic Law (2015) (in Chinese); and Constitutional Courts in Asia (2018).
Professor Chen is currently a member of the Hong Kong Basic Law Committee under China’s National People’s Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC) (a position which he has held since 1997) and a Justice of the Peace. He is an honorary professor at several universities in mainland China and a member of the Academic Advisory Committee of the Institute of Law of the Academia Sinica, Taipei. He is also Associate Editor of Hong Kong Law Journal and a member of the editorial or advisory boards of several other journals published in Hong Kong, mainland China, Taiwan, and overseas, including the China Review, Journal of Comparative Law, Legal Studies, Transnational Legal Theory, Chinese Journal of Comparative Law, Asian Journal of Law and Society, Asian Journal of Comparative Law, and National Taiwan University Law Review.
