Professor Michael C. Davis is a core founding member of both the Article 23 and 45 concern groups, and has served as an adviser to such Hong Kong based groups as International Chamber of Commerce, the Asian Human Rights Commission, and the Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor. He has played an active role in progressing Hong Kong’s debate on constitutional reform. In a recently published open letter to Carrie Lam, Michael Davis suggested a way for Hong Kong to elect the chief executive in 2017 that would conform to the Basic Law, as the government insists, while being consistent with international human rights standards. In this talk in the weeks before the large July 1 civil protest in Hong Kong, Prof Davis evaluated how the debate over the Chief Executive Election and Democratic Rights in Hong Kong has developed and set out his understanding of Hong Kong’s progress towards universal suffrage.
Michael C. Davis, a professor in the Law Faculty at the University of Hong Kong, has held visiting chairs at Northwestern University Law School (2005-06) and Notre Dame Law School (2004-05), as well as the Schell Senior Human Rights Fellowship at the Yale Law School (1994-95). His publications include Constitutional Confrontation in Hong Kong (1990), Human Rights and Chinese Values (1995) and International Intervention: From Power Politics to Global Responsibility (2004), as well as numerous articles on human rights and constitutionalism issues in leading academic journals in law and political science. He has law degrees from the University of California, Hastings (JD) and Yale Law School (LLM).
