Democracy and Judicial Behaviour in Asia

Democracies come in different forms. Some are effectively ruled by a dominant party that has muted most opposition. Some are dynamic, with two or more parties that have taken turns in power. Others are more fragile, with a strong military that may seize power if there...

The Paradox of Information Control in China

The COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak that started in Wuhan this past winter triggered deep questions about the flow of information in Mainland China, as officials played down the threat until it became too big to ignore. To those who experienced SARS in 2003, the...

Mind Your Language

The origins of the book – Common Law in an Uncommon Courtroom: Judicial Interpreting in Hong Kong – go back 25 years to 1994, when Dr Eva Ng joined Hong Kong Judiciary as a Court Interpreter II. She left that job 14 months later, but the uniqueness of the situation...

A Sliver of Hope for Hong Kong

In the 1980s, when Hong Kong’s future was being negotiated by China and Britain, Deng Xiaoping coined the phrase ‘one country, two systems’ to describe the solution of allowing Hong Kong’s legal and economic system to remain unchanged for 50 years. This governing...

Europe’s Dirty Money Problem

In September 2018 the world’s largest money laundering scandal was revealed and it was shockingly centred on regulated banks in Europe. Some US$230 billion – yes, billion – was laundered from Russia, Azerbaijan and other dubious sources through Estonia, using Danish...