Description

As Beijing’s intervention looms large amidst the escalating protest in Hong Kong and the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ legal arrangement virtually exists in name only, talks of ‘federalism, in Chinese style’ seem to fall out of fashion. Despite Beijing’s recent ridiculing of the Sino-British Joint Declaration as merely a historical document, its provision for a high degree of autonomy for Hong Kong under the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ arrangement did fuel discussions of ‘the federal idea, Chinese style’ when Hong Kong was to be restored to China. Notably, Hong Kong is not the first frontier where China and Britain have clashed over the interpretation of territorial legal status. Looking beyond the current conflicting treaty interpretations between China and the UK and in light of their suzerainty-vs-sovereignty dispute over Tibet, this seminar aims to provide a re-appraisal of the federal idea through an examination of the direction it has travelled in the differing constitutional imaginaries of the centre-frontier relationship.

About The Speaker

Dr Ming-Sung Kuo is an associate professor at the School of Law, University of Warwick. His scholarship on theory of public international law, global constitutionalism, global administrative law, comparative constitutional law, and constitutional theory has appeared in Constellations, International Journal of Constitutional Law, European Journal of International Law, Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Global Constitutionalism, Leiden Journal of International Law, Ratio Juris, Modern Law Review, among other leading journals. He earned a JSD and an LLM from Yale after graduating from National Taiwan University with an LLB and an LLM. Dr Kuo previously held a Max Weber Fellowship at European University Institute in Florence, a visiting fellowship at Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg, and a stipendary visiting scholarship with iCourts at University of Copenhagen.