The New York Times: Michael C. Davis on the Battle Over Hong Kong’s Future

Chris Buckley | 19 June 2014 | The New York Times

Hong Kong is undergoing deepening tensions over its political future as a self-governed territory under Chinese sovereignty. Democratic activists have demanded that residents win the right to elect Hong Kong’s top leader, called the chief executive, without procedures that would ensure that only candidates approved by Beijing appear on the ballot. Many of the activists have endorsed Occupy Central with Love and Peace, a movement whose members have said they will stage civil disobedience protests in the city’s financial heart if electoral reform plans proposed by the Hong Kong government and Beijing, possibly later this year, do not meet their criteria for universal suffrage.

In an interview, Michael C. Davis, a professor of law at the University of Hong Kong, explained what is at stake.

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The Pulse: Occupy Central Narrows the Field; District Councils “Promote” Constitutional Reform

21 May 2014 | RTHK

1. Benny Tai and Michael Davis discuss results of the Constitutional Reform Deliberation Day.

2. In societies that get to fully elect their government there’s always a bit of a conundrum when the government spends public money to convince the public of a viewpoint it might not share. It gets even more confusing when this activity occurs in the process of a consultation supposedly to assess public views. Hong Kong’s government allocated a total of HKS4.5 million in public money to district councils to promote the idea that proposals for electoral reform should follow the Basic Law, but do the public’s representatives have a right to help determine how that money was spent?

Academic Roundtable: Universal Suffrage and Nomination Procedures: Imperatives from Article 25 ICCPR

20 March 2014 | Center for Comparative and Public Law, Faulty of Law, The University of Hong Kong

The Centre for Comparative and Public Law at the Faculty of Law, the University of Hong Kong hosted an academic roundtable on “Universal Suffrage and Nomination Procedures: Imperatives from Article 25 ICCPR” in light of the impending electoral reforms in Hong Kong on 20 March, 2014. The Roundtable garnered the reflections of international experts on the requirements of equal and universal suffrage as expressed in Article 25. These insights will be used as a basis to evaluate the various proposed models for electing the Chief Executive and members of the Legislative Council in Hong Kong. 

Event details, including written submissions by participants

Watch video on SocREC archive