East Asian International Economic Law and Policy (EAIEL) Programme
Convenor: Professor Douglas W. Arner
Professor Douglas W Arner specialises in economic and financial law, regulation and development. He is author, co-author or editor of eighteen books, including The RegTech Book (Wiley 2019), Reconceptualising Global Finance and its Regulation (Cambridge 2016), Financial Markets in Hong Kong: Law and Practice (Oxford, 2d ed., 2016), Finance in Asia: Institutions, Regulation and Policy (Routledge 2013), From Crisis to Crisis: The Global Financial Crisis and Regulatory Failure (Kluwer 2011) and Financial Stability, Economic Growth and the Role of Law (Cambridge 2007), and the author or co-author of more than 150 articles, chapters and reports on related subjects. His recent papers are available at SSRN where he is among the top 60 authors in the world by downloads.
The East Asian International Economic Law and Policy (“EAIEL”) Programme was founded in 2003 in order to create a world-leading programme, situated in Hong Kong, on international economic law and policy; particularly with respect to developments in China and the East Asian region. China’s accession in 2001 to the World Trade Organization was a major event and provided the impetus for its establishment.
In its initial years under the leadership of Donald Lewis, Mattheo Bushehri and Henry Gao, the EAIEL Programme focused on two principal areas of activity: (i) academic research on WTO and international economic law and policy concerning China and East Asia; and (ii) training programmes on trade law and policy, principally for governments of the Asia Pacific region under the auspices of the WTO’s Regional Trade Policy Programme in the Asia-Pacific. Professor CL Lim was Convenor of the EAIEL Programme prior to Professor Douglas W. Arner.
Today, EAIEL has a track record not only in scholarship and capacity building but also in its outreach and knowledge-exchange programmes as it seeks to bring greater understanding of contemporary issues not only to local professionals and policy-makers, but also to the broader Hong Kong public, visiting scholars and high officials travelling through Hong Kong, as well as visiting students from outside Hong Kong. In this regard, EAIEL hosts lunch and evening talks on the HKU campus, hosts visiting delegations, and engages the global press on developments in China, Hong Kong and the region.
Conscious of the rapid pace of developments, EAIEL’s talks and research initiatives and the work of its fellows in Hong Kong and abroad continue to evolve; not least in light of China’s and Hong Kong’s roles in the international economic field. EAIEL’s Hong Kong-based scholars and foreign fellows currently work on a variety of subjects. These range from research on ASEAN rules of origin and the ASEAN Economic Community to Hong Kong’s engagement of ASEAN, developments in China’s competition law regime, the emergence of mega-regional economic treaties in the Asia-Pacific, China’s investment treaty negotiations, the growth in East Asian arbitration work and regional and global financial arrangements. In addition to its collaboration with other HKU Law Faculty Centres and Programmes, EAIEL has an interdisciplinary mandate and welcomes collaboration with other HKU faculties, centres and institutes.
EAIEL Fellows – Previous Appointments