Autonomy and Protection of Fundamental Rights in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region

On 1 July 1997, British Hong Kong--including Hong Kong Island, Kowloon, and the New Territories--was formally transferred from British possession to the People's Republic of China (PRC). According to the Sino-British Joint Declaration and the Hong Kong Basic Law, the area of Hong Kong would be renamed the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR), it would be granted a considerable amount of autonomy from PRC central government control during a transitional period under the "One China, two systemsâ[euro] principle, and the majority of international conventions applying to Hong Kong prior to 1 July 1997 would remain in force. The terms of the transfer were met with joy by some, trepidation by others. Yet for lawyers, policy-makers, and international organizations these terms engendered confusion, much of which remains today, over the true nature of Hong Kong's autonomy and its status in international law. Wong's book, +Italic Autonomy and Protection of Fundamental Rights in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region -Italic attempts to address this confusion in two ways. First, Wong contextualizes Hong Kong's status vis-à-vis the PRC and the international community within the greater legal and political discourse on concepts of sovereignty and self-determination. Second, by interrogating the nature of the "One China, two systemsâ[euro] policy through an examination of the status of individual rights derived from international and domestic legislation, Wong illustrates the problematic interplay between the PRC central government and the "independentâ[euro] legal system of Hong Kong. Wong's book provides a very useful analysis of the current legal status of Hong Kong in terms of both international law and domestic law. In so doing, Wong illustrates how the conceptual structure and functional dynamics of the Hong Kong SAR both problematizes traditional conceptions of autonomy in international law and offers potentially new categories.