The Sources of Hong Kong Law

Hong Kong has a curious mixture of laws old and new, written and unwritten, home-grown and imported. Made by various bodies in various ways with various results, these laws constitute a reasonably coherent body of rules, principles, practices, procedures, assumptions, and attitudes. How are these differing sources of law best described and explained? How are they mobilized and employed? How do they achieve the coherence they seem to display, and can that coherence be maintained? Such are the questions which this book seeks to illuminate. They are vital questions for a legal system undergoing significant change at a crucial time in the political development of Hong Kong.

Peter Wesley-Smith is Professor of Law and Dean of the Faculty of Law, the University of Hong Kong, and Editor-in-Chief of the Hong Kong Law Journal. His first encounter with the territory was as a research student, when he embarked upon a study of the lease of the New Territories. His doctoral thesis became Unequal Treaty 1898–1997, something of a best-seller for an academic work. He subsequently published An Introduction to the Hong Kong Legal System and Constitutional and Administrative Law in Hong Kong (both now in their second editions). He has also edited and contributed to several other books and written many articles on aspects of the Hong Kong legal system and constitution.