This Article arises from a comparative study of Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, three Chinese-majority societies that have pursued different paths in developing LGBTQ+ rights. Despite variations in context and outcome, all three jurisdictions have recently achieved important milestones and share characteristics that shape the trajectory of LGBTQ+ rights reform. Although conservative segments of each society cite Confucian philosophy and other religious traditions to justify unequal treatment, all have economic incentives to promote diversity. Public opinion has also become increasingly supportive of LGBTQ+ rights. In these environments, advocates employ a range of tactics including public campaigns, strategic litigation and leveraging international norms. Our findings contribute to a small body of comparative scholarship illustrating progress, even innovation, on LGBTQ+ rights in Asia, despite perceptions that Asia lags far behind the Global North. This Article also speaks to debates about the effectiveness of international human rights law. Although no human rights treaty expressly addresses sexual orientation or gender identity discrimination, our study indicates that international human rights treaties and reporting systems can still help advance LGBTQ+ rights. While especially true when rights are domestically incorporated and enforced by an independent judiciary, international human rights can assist even in less liberal settings.

This article explores the role of international law in Hong Kong's Court of Final Appeal (CFA). The CFA makes extensive use of international and comparative materials, particularly the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). However, it avoids issuing judgments that would clash with Beijing's core interests and accepts its broad definition of "national security". This arguably facilitates authoritarian interpretations of the ICCPR and undermines the authority of the Human Rights Committee. Yet, in March of 2025, the CFA granted an appeal and upheld the right to fair trial, emphasizing that the ICCPR continues to enjoy constitutional status in Hong Kong. Moreover, the CFA continues to advance the rights of vulnerable groups, including the LGBT community. The CFA's contributions to comparative jurisprudence on international human rights law are decidedly mixed. But this is arguably inevitable, given its unusual status as an "apex court" operating in the shadow of Beijing.

The COVID-19 pandemic had mixed effects on reproductive autonomy. While some governments excluded reproductive health care from the category of "essential" services that could be provided during shutdown orders, the pandemic also gave researchers an opportunity to study the efficacy and safety of telemedicine abortion and self-managed abortion. Feminist organizations around the world have also organized to provide cross-border services and far more women now know how to obtain abortion medications. This can be empowering, not only during a public emergency but also when legal rights are suddenly taken away. Unfortunately, for those women who require surgical abortion care, overly strict laws can still lead to tragic outcomes. This is why it is important that human rights treaty bodies and courts are gradually recognizing a right to reproductive autonomy under regional and international human rights law. Hopefully, even conservative governments can be persuaded to provide compassionate exceptions in their laws regulating abortion. A more compassionate approach to the subject of abortion would promote both maternal health and gender equality, helping governments to achieve the ambitious targets in the Sustainable Development Goals.

Although the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG s) demonstrate more commitment to gender equality than the Millennium Development Goals, there is still insufficient integration between SDG 5 (Gender Equality) and SDG 14 (Life Below Water). This article reviews recent research on the relationship between gender equality and sustainable oceans, which demonstrates the importance of obtaining gender-specific data regarding the impact of laws and policies adopted to protect the marine environment. The article also reviews recent efforts to promote greater gender equality in the ocean sciences and the maritime sectors. It concludes by arguing that international law- and especially the reporting process for the Convention of the Elimination on All Forms of Discrimination Against Women- can do more to promote gender awareness in the implementation of SDG 14.

Abstract This review article critiques Frontiers of Gender Equality: Transnational Legal Perspectives, edited by Rebecca J Cook. Composed of chapters centred on advancing gender equality, Frontiers differs from the typical edited collection because the authors worked collaboratively and shared a common purpose. They are all strongly committed to substantive equality (as opposed to formal equality) and recognise the importance of addressing intersectional discrimination. In their respective chapters the authors expand the discourse surrounding gender equality law by envisioning transformative approaches to righting gendered wrongs in domestic, regional and international human rights systems. While the collection is certainly valuable for scholars and legal practitioners, this review article considers its value for a different audience – that of graduate students in law and gender studies. Because the book is far more structured and unified than the typical edited collection, it could serve as a foundational textbook for an advanced comparative course on gender equality and the law. This review article – authored by a professor and a law student – analyses the book’s considerable strengths as a textbook. However, it also identifies certain weaknesses and suggests supplementary materials, in order to provide better coverage of the Asia-Pacific region.

Abstract This chapter considers the relationship between constitutionalism and the rights of women in East Asia, focusing on Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. These four jurisdictions provide a useful case study as they all have constitutions with equality clauses and their legal systems allow for judicial review. Yet women continue to be under-represented in leadership positions, in both the public and private sectors. The case study demonstrates that judicial review has had only limited impact in Japan, partly because the judiciary has applied a weak standard of review and has not looked to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) for guidance when interpreting Japan’s constitution. In contrast, in South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, judges have applied a stricter standard of review and have been more willing to apply international norms as a guide to interpreting their constitutions.

In July 2022, the United Nations Human Rights Committee, the treaty -monitoring body for the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), completed its fourth review of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China. The Committee expressed grave concerns regarding the recent restrictions on civil liberties, particularly since the Law of the People's Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security in Hong Kong (NSL) came into force. The Committee's Concluding Observations & mdash; and the Hong Kong Government's initial response to them & mdash; raise serious doubts as to whether local officials still view the ICCPR as a meaningful constraint on governmental power. The local courts could improve this situation by making a concerted effort to use the ICCPR and the jurisprudence of the Human Rights Committee as a guide to interpreting vague statutory language in the NSL and local sedition legislation. This would be entirely consistent with the approach that has long been followed by Hong Kong's appellate courts. Yet, for some reason, we have not yet seen this approach in recent judgments convicting defendants of NSL and sedition offences. If this trend continues, then the ICCPR may eventually be viewed as mere "window dressing" in Hong Kong's legal system.

Although widely ratified, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) has proven challenging for governments to implement. This article focusses on the right to legal capacity, which is protected by Article 12. According to the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD Committee), Article 12 requires governments to abolish all forms of substitute decision-making and provide, instead, mechanisms of supported decision-making for those who need assistance implementing decisions that reflect their own will and preferences. Rather than try to meet that standard, it appears that many governments are choosing not to engage in the process of reforming laws governing adult guardianship, compulsory treatment, and detention on the ground of disability. Hong Kong provides an excellent example of such a jurisdiction. Although bound by the CRPD since 2008, the government has not implemented Article 12 and largely ignored the issue in its 2018 report to the CRPD Committee. Meanwhile, the problems in Hong Kong’s legal framework have become critical. This is partly because the political unrest of 2019 and the crackdown by Beijing in 2020-21 have contributed to a mental health crisis in the territory. Fortunately, the CRPD Committee has requested more detailed information on the right to legal capacity for its upcoming review of Hong Kong. It is, therefore, an ideal time to consider what Hong Kong and other jurisdictions can do to better meet their obligations. This article recognises that the right to legal capacity is a contentious area of law and policy and that it is unrealistic to expect governments to immediately abolish all forms of substitute decision-making. We therefore propose an alternative theoretical framework for interpreting Article 12, one that we hope will promote law reform. Although our approach differs from that taken by the CRPD Committee, it is consistent with the holistic approach to rights that is the hallmark of the CRPD and with the doctrines of interpretation for human rights treaties.

This article analyses the Law of the People's Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security in Hong Kong (NSL) from the perspective of foreign governments. The NSL empowers security personnel from Mainland China to operate openly in Hong Kong and provides a mechanism through which the Central Government can assert jurisdiction over particular cases. Many nations have responded by suspending their extradition agreements with Hong Kong and by applying new export controls, no longer trusting the "firewall" that previously separated the two legal systems. Foreign governments are also concerned by the broadly defined criminal offences, the extraterritorial reach of the NSL and the expansion in police powers. Although art 4 states that the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) will continue to apply, this general statement is undermined by specific clauses that conflict with ICCPR-protected rights. Given that the ultimate power of interpretation rests with the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, one cannot assume that the Hong Kong judiciary will be able to cure these problems. Foreign governments are therefore justified in concluding that Hong Kong is no longer operating a truly separate legal system from Mainland China.

This article argues that Hong Kong is not simply an internal affair of the People's Republic of China and that the United Nations (UN) should be monitoring implementation of the Sino-British Joint Declaration in the territory. The article begins by reviewing the right to self-determination for a "colonised people" and the 2019 Advisory Opinion on the Legal Consequences of the Separation of the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius in 1965, in which the International Court of Justice confirmed that the right to self-determination for colonised peoples was a crystallised norm of customary international law by 1960 and that the UN General Assembly's role in promoting self-determination can continue well after a colony has been removed from the UN's list of non-self-governing territories. The article then applies this analysis to Hong Kong, arguing that the residents of the territory constituted a colonised people and that the Sino-British Joint Declaration should be interpreted as promising a form of palliative internal self-determination, a means of reconciling the normal rights of a colonised people with China's competing territorial claims. Given the role that the UN played in Hong Kong's transition from a British colony to a Special Administrative Region of China, it has an interest in monitoring implementation of the treaty. The article concludes by exploring remedies that might be pursued should "One Country, Two Systems" ultimately fail to provide genuine autonomy and internal self-determination.

This article explores and outlines four possible pathways for law reform in the area of compulsory mental health admission and treatment in Hong Kong: the (i) abolition, (ii) risk of harm, (iii) mental capacity and (iv) consensus pathways. The discussion of each pathway takes into account local challenges in implementation, as well as Hong Kong's international commitments for the protection of rights. In outlining these pathways for reform, the authors intend to also provide a blueprint for regulatory change in other jurisdictions that are in the process of reforming their mental health laws.

In past publications, I have referred to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) as Hong Kong's "gold standard" because of its special place in the constitutional order. 1 The treaty has been incorporated into the domestic legal system through the Hong Kong Bill of Rights Ordinance (Cap 383) (BORO)2 and art 39 of the Basic Law, Hong Kong's constitutional instrument. Although the Basic Law contains other provisions protecting human rights, art 39 is arguably the most important provision because it links Hong Kong to international norms. Local judges have regularly referred to international and foreign jurisprudence when applying the ICCPR to specific disputes and have declined to enforce local legislation that could not be interpreted so as to comply with the ICCPR. 4

In the era of “big data,” researchers manage high-volume, high-variety, and high velocity data sets, which are increasingly available to the general public. This paper explores the human rights implications of data-driven health care, focusing on the rights of persons who either live with disabilities or may be perceived as having an elevated risk of developing a disability in the future. Access to high-quality data at reasonable cost can help governments to fulfill the right to health, which is well established in international human rights law. The data revolution has also empowered individuals to take greater control over their own health and to monitor their governments’ compliance with human rights treaties, including the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). Yet big data can also inadvertently promote discrimination and violations of privacy. In theory, governments should ensure confidentiality and respect for the privacy of individuals’ health data. In practice, it is difficult to prevent data miners from using re-identification techniques to link anonymized health information with non-medical open data. It is therefore important to enact antidiscrimination legislation that prohibits not only discrimination on the ground of existing, past, and imputed disabilities but also discrimination on the ground of a disability that may develop in the future. Governments may also need to take a proactive approach and require employers, insurance companies and other private actors to disclose whether they are using re-identification processes or purchasing health-related data from data brokers.

As former British colonies with predominantly Chinese populations, developed economies, and sophisticated legal systems, Singapore and Hong Kong have much in common. Both jurisdictions inherited prohibitions on non-procreative sexual conduct during the colonial period and maintained them long after England liberalised its own laws. Opponents of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights in both cities frequently claim that homosexuality is alien to Chinese culture, although it was the prohibitions on same-sex relationships that were inherited from England. Yet, despite these similarities, gay men enjoy far more legal space in Hong Kong than in Singapore. Ironically, this difference can be partly explained by the delay in developing democracy in Hong Kong, which has increased the role of international human rights law. Section 1 of the article introduces relevant international norms and the comparative case study. Section 2 analyses the process of decriminalisation in Hong Kong, which began during the colonial period but was completed after 1997, through successful applications for judicial review. Section 3 then analyses the failure to decriminalise in Singapore and the recent judgment by Singapore's Court of Appeal upholding the criminal prohibition of male-to-male sexual relations. Section 4 analyses prospects for legislation prohibiting discrimination in the private sector, a milestone that has yet to be achieved in either jurisdiction. While enacting domestic legislation is an inherently local process, international human rights monitoring bodies can assist the LGBT movement by critiquing domestic laws and policies.

Population aging has captured the attention of the international human rights movement and raised new questions regarding the legal framework for...

This article frequently uses the terms "sex work" and "sex