Constitutional Change in Asia in the 21st Century
Faculty of Law, The University of Hong Kong
Keynote speakers
The Right Honourable Madam Justice Beverley McLachlin
Madam Justice McLachlin served as a Non-Permanent Judge of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal from 2018 to 2024.
Madam Justice McLachlin was born in Canada in 1943. She graduated with a BA and MA in Philosophy, and also an LLB from the University of Alberta. She was called to the Alberta Bar in 1969 and to the British Columbia Bar in 1971, and practised law in both places.
She was appointed to the Vancouver County Court in April 1981, and appointed to the Supreme Court of British Columbia in September of the same year. She was elevated to the British Columbia Court of Appeal in 1985 and was appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of British Columbia in 1988. In 1989 she was sworn in as a Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. From 2000 to 2017, she served as Chief Justice of Canada.
Madam Justice McLachlin chaired the Canadian Judicial Council, the Advisory Council of the Order of Canada, and the Board of Governors of the National Judicial Institute. She was named Companion of the Order of Canada in 2018, and is a member of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada, as well as an Honorary Bencher of Gray’s Inn, Lincoln’s Inn, Inner Temple and Middle Temple. She also works as an arbitrator and mediator in Canada and internationally.
Professor Cheryl Saunders AO
Cheryl Saunders has specialist interests in Australian and comparative public law, including comparative constitutional law and method, intergovernmental relations and constitutional design and change. She is a President Emeritus of the International Association of Constitutional Law, a former President of the International Association of Centres for Federal Studies, a former President of the Administrative Review Council of Australia and a senior technical advisor to the Constitution Building program of International IDEA. She has held visiting positions in law schools in many parts of the world and is an officer of the Order of Australia and a Chevalier dans l'Ordre National de la Legion d'Honneur of France.
Cheryl Saunders is a laureate professor emeritus. She teaches in both the JD and the MLM and is the founding Director of the Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies.
Cheryl Saunders has specialist interests in constitutional law and comparative public law, including federalism and intergovernmental relations and constitutional design and change, on all of which she has written widely. She has recently published The Australian Constitution: A Contextual Analysis (Hart Publishing, 2011) and is presently working on a monograph on comparative constitutional law.
Cheryl Saunders is an editor of the Public Law Review and a member of the editorial boards of a range of Australian and international journals, including Publius, Jus Politicum and the Constitutional Court Review, South Africa. She has held visiting positions at the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Paris II, Georgetown, Indiana (Bloomington), Hong Kong, Copenhagen, Fribourg, Capetown and Auckland. She is President Emeritus of the International Association of Constitutional Law and the International Association of Centers for Federal Studies and a former President of the Administrative Review Council of Australia.
In addition to her research and teaching activities, Cheryl Saunders is active in public debate on constitutional matters in Australia and internationally. From 1991, as deputy chair of the Australian Constitutional Centenary Foundation, she was closely involved in its pioneering work to encourage public understanding of the Constitution. She has had some involvement in aspects of constitutional design in other countries, including Fiji, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, East Timor, Iraq and Nepal. She is a senior technical advisor to the Constitution Building program of International IDEA.
In 1994, Cheryl Saunders was made an officer of the Order of Australia, for services to the law and to public administration. She was awarded a Centenary Medal in 2003, and an honorary doctorate from the University of Cordoba, Argentina in 2005. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia and a Foundation Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law.
Professor Gerald J. Postema
Gerald J. Postema has published extensively in legal and political philosophy and ethics. He earned BA degree from Calvin College (1970) and PhD (1976) from Cornell University. He began his teaching career at Johns Hopkins Unversity (1975-1980). Until his retirement in 2019, he taught philosophy and law at UNC-CH, since 1996 as Boshamer Distinguished Professor of Philosophy. On October 24, 2016 he was given an honorary doctorate by the University of Athens, Greece. Earlier (2013-14) he served as Arthur L. Goodhart Distinguished Visiting Professor of Legal Science (Cambridge University) and Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He received the George J. Johnson Prize for Distinguished Achievement in the Arts and Humanities, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2012. He is a former Guggenheim Fellow, Rockefeller Fellow (Bellagio), Medlin Fellow (National Humanities Center), Fellow of the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies, and Visiting Fellow at the European University Institute (Florence). On February 20, 2014, he delivered the prestigious Boutwood Lecture at University of Cambridge.
Professor Dayuan Han
Dayuan HAN is a Professor of Law and the Director of the “One Country, Two Systems” Law Institute at Renmin University of China.
He serves as a Member of the Hong Kong Basic Law Committee of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, Honorary President of the Chinese Constitutional Studies Association, and Vice President of the National Hong Kong and Macao Studies Association.
Additionally, he is an Executive Committee Member of the International Constitution Association. His primary research areas include the Chinese Constitution, Comparative Constitution, and the Basic Laws of Hong Kong and Macao. Professor Han has authored numerous academic works, such as “Research on Asian Constitutionalism,” “Basic Principles of Constitutional Law,” “The Formulation Process of the 1954 Constitution,” “History of Chinese Constitutional Doctrines,” and “Constitution and Basic Law: History, Text, and Reality,” among others.