One Country, Two International Legal Personalities

The transition from British to Chinese rule, although widely anticipated, is shaping up as one of the most challenging events in Hong Kong’s history. It also constitutes a highly complex exercise in social, political, economic and legal engineering from an international perspective. The intricacies of the transition, both at the analytical and practical levels, have been addressed by scholars in different fields. The international legal dimension of the process, however, has thus far been tackled in a piecemeal fashion.

The purpose of this book is to examine the key relevant issues within a single framework, highlighting the interconnections in as broad as possible a context. The author employs international legal concepts to assess, from a normative standpoint, the underpinnings of the unique ‘one country-two systems’ formula devised by Britain and China, focusing in detail on questions such as Hong Kong’s international legal status, jurisdictional competence, international legal obligations, human rights, pivotal aspects of treaty law and the relationship between Hong Kong’s domestic law and international law.

Dr Roda Mushkat is a professor of law at the University of Hong Kong, where she has been teaching since 1979 in the subjects of Public International Law, Jurisprudence, Law & Society, Constitutional & Administrative Law, and Conflict of Laws. She has been affiliated as a visiting scholar with some of the world’s leading law schools. Dr Mushkat has published extensively in the areas of international refugee law, international environmental law, international law of war, human rights and legal theory. She is considered to be the principal academic authority in issues pertaining to Hong Kong’s international legal status and personality, and has written numerous papers on the topic.