Richard Cullen

Climbing the Weiquan Ladder: A Radicalizing process for rights-protection lawyers

It is commonly acknowledged that weiquan lawyers operate in a narrow space, and lawyers with a radical stance work within a harsh environment. Weiquan lawyers advance and retreat in response to the changing macro-political-legal environment, but there is no sign that they are giving up their legal struggles. A steadily growing number of weiquan lawyers are tending to become more radical in their approach as their experience advances. This article studies the process in which weiquan lawyers start and sustain weiquan lawyering in a harsh environment and the factors that contribute to the radicalizing process. Its principal purpose is to identify and explain a radicalization process in which a lawyer climbs up the ladder of weiquan lawyering, from a moderate lawyer providing legal aid in individual cases to a critical or radical lawyer. An authoritarian state prohibits political participation that poses a direct challenge to the regime. It turns out, however, that such a state may at the same time promote, or at least tolerate, a degree of rule of law.1 This development of legal possibilities under political constraints provides both the necessity and opportunities for political lawyering in which lawyers channel political challenges through a legal process. Where oppositional politics is prohibited or constrained, lawyers and other rights advocates may strive to seek legal remedies for their political claims. There are many inherent political constraints in the operation of China’s authoritarian state. Political participation remains tightly controlled under Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rule and as a result aggrieved citizens can rarely air and solve their problems through this route. The lack of effective venues for conventional political participation, however, is compensated in part by the development of certain legal institutions. In the past three decades, the CCP * The University of Hong Kong. Email: hlfu@hku.hk (corresponding author). † The University of Hong Kong. 1 Tom Ginsburg and Tamir Moustafa, Rule by Law: The Politics of Courts in Authoritarian Regimes (New York: Cambridge Universeity Press, 2008). 40

Electing Hong Kong's Chief Executive

In this book we explain the basic operation of the several Election Committees (ECs) established, in accordance with the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administraive Region, since 1997. We also examine the creation and operation of the pre-1997, forebear of the EC, the Selection Committee. This book provides a detailed, critical examination of the operation this still crucial (non-democratic) electoral college system in Hong Kong.

Political Reform in Hong Kong: the Principal Officials Accountability System. The first year (2002–2003)

The new Principal Officials Accountability System (POAS), a proto-ministerial system, was established at the start of the Second Term of Office of the Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR). This paper examines the setting-up of the POAS and reviews how it has functioned during its first year of life. Both the design and implementation of the POAS were characterized by undue haste. The establishing of the POAS intensified the debate on a range of matters as new ministers, senior civil servants and residents have come to terms with the detail of this novel arrangement. Discussions about political reform are set to intensify in the years to come. This article reviews the origins and deeper need for the POAS in Hong Kong before looking at the fundamentals of the new system. The nature of ‘accountability’ is then discussed prior to examining Hong Kongs experience with the POAS in action during its first year. The article also discusses the potential of the POAS to contribute to Hong Kongs overall political development.

The Encounter between Natural Resources and Federalism in Canada and Australia

Natural resources have been and remain vital to the economic well being in Canada and Australia. The battles over offshore Natural Resources, especially, between Central and Regional Governments in both nations have raised pivotal Federalism issues. The comparative triumph of Central control in Australia and Regional control in Canada reveal much about the historical, fundamental political forces at work in each nation.

Green Taxation in East Asia

A primary aim of this book (and the Conference on which it is based) was to generate an academically well grounded comparative study of the use and misuse of fiscal measures – especially green taxation: to encourage environmental protection and improvement in particular jurisdictions (and across jurisdictional borders); and to discourage behavior leading to environmental damage and degradation in particular jurisdictions (and across jurisdictional borders). We were also interested in the revenue outcomes of such measures – and the way such outcomes can, in turn, shape later tax and related policy – and social behavior. The book seeks to explore the scope – and limits – of green taxation in depth.

Taxation Rulings: Practice and Policy in Hong Kong

This article reviews the (then) newly introduced Taxation Ruling system in Hong Kong. The design, scope and operation of the new system are compared with that operating in Australia - a jurisdiction which has influenced Tax law drafting in Hong Kong significantly.

Canada and Australia: A Federal Parting of the Ways

This article looks in depth at the ways in which the two largest, British created Federal States, Canada and Australia have, over time, produced quite divergent Federal systems. It explains why regional differences in Canada and notably more striking than in Australia. It spends some time looking at the differing resolution of the rather intense Central-Regional disputes over control of offshore resources.