In 2014 a civil disobedience movement, officially titled “Occupy Central with Love and Peace”, lasted for several months in Hong Kong from September to the end of the year. Initiated by Associate Professor Benny Tai Yiu-ting of the Hong Kong University Law Faculty but later controlled by two groups of students, the movement reached an unprecedented scale and almost paralyzed the most important business locations of Hong Kong by blocking several of the arterial routes of Hong Kong Island with waves of demonstrations. For a long time, Occupy Central also occupied the headlines of international newspapers. Needless to say, it has shocked politicians in Beijing.

Occupy Central is part of the ongoing game between Hong Kong and Beijing on the former’s political reform, for which the current focal point of the debate is how to achieve universal suffrage in the 2017 Chief Executive election. Not surprisingly, all the various players involved in the movement, including the Central Government in Beijing, the Hong Kong SAR government, the pro-democracy camp, the pro-Beijing camp, among others, believe that their own proposal is the best.

CALS follows the important legal development in Asia and focuses on cutting edge Asian law research. We view the constitutional and political development in Hong Kong as something we cannot afford to miss to study about. Further, as a sister financial hub in Asia, Singapore always feels the impact of the major events happened in Hong Kong. For these reasons, this workshop aims to bring together scholars and persons in other capacities who have been studying Hong Kong’s constitutional law or participated in the recent major political or legal events in Hong Kong to discuss the relevant issues in person.