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The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) states in 2018 that safeguarding “civil liberties is critical” to their official duties. The Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties within DHS, as its website explains,

reviews and assesses complaints from the public in areas such as: physical or other abuse; discrimination based on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or disability; inappropriate conditions of confinement; infringements of free speech; violation of right to due process … and any other civil rights or civil liberties violation related to a Department program or activity.

My chapter tracks the centrality of deportability in shaping the civil liberties and rights that DHS is tasked with enforcing. Over the course of the twentieth century, people on US soil saw an expanding list of civil liberties and civil rights. Important scholarship concentrates on the role of the courts, state and federal governments, advocacy groups, social movements, and foreign policy driving these constitutional and cultural changes. For instance, the scholarship illustrates that coming out of World War I, the US Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment did not protect something the Justices labeled “irresponsible speech.” The Supreme Court soon changed course, opening up an era ever since of more robust First Amendment rights. What has not been undertaken in the literature is an examination of the relationship of deportability to the sweep of civil liberties and civil rights. Starting in the second decade of the twentieth century, federal immigration policymakers began multiplying types of immigration statuses. A century later, among many others, there is the H2A status for temporary low-wage workers, the H2B for skilled labor, and permanent residents with green cards. The deportability of each status constrains access to certain liberties and rights. Thus, in 2016, when people from the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties within DHS act, they are not enforcing a uniform body of rights and liberties that applies equally to citizens and immigrants, or even within the large category of immigrants. Instead, they do so within a complicated matrix of liberties and rights attenuated by deportability, which has been shaped by the history of the twentieth century.

This chapter uses the historian’s method of micro-history to rethink the significance of the Supreme Court decision Muller v. Oregon (1908). Muller is typically considered a labor law decision permitting the regulation of women’s work hours. However, this chapter argues that through particular attention to the specific context in which the labor dispute took place – the laundry industry in Portland, Oregon – the Muller decision and underlying conflict should be understood as not only about sex-based labor rights but also about how the labor of laundry specifically involved race-based discrimination. This chapter investigates the most important conflicts behind the Muller decision, namely the entangled histories of white laundresses’ labor and labor activism in Portland, as well as the labor of their competitors – Chinese laundrymen. In so doing, this chapter offers an intersectional reading of Muller that incorporates regulations on Chinese laundries and places the decision in conversation with a long line of anti-Chinese laundry legislation on the West Coast, including that at issue in Yick Wo v. Hopkins (1886).

This study aims to decrypt the efforts made by Chinese people's courts nationwide to protect the rights of Chinese posted workers in the Belt & Road (B&R) countries by investigating labour litigation cases with an extraterritorial application of Chinese labour law (under the “doctrine of overriding mandatory labour rules”).

This study collected all labour litigation from 2014 to 2018 brought forward by Chinese posted workers in Chinese courts against Chinese enterprises regarding the performance of employment contracts in the B&R countries where Chinese labour laws were mandatorily applied under the doctrine of overriding mandatory labour rules. The study adopted a qualitive research approach to analyse the compiled cases to explore their characteristics and effects.

This study found that the volume of labour disputes in the B&R countries had a somewhat positive correlation to the amount of investment from China. However, this correlation was rather superficial when compared with the correlation to the type of industrial sector (e.g. the construction sector) and to the claim category (e.g. remuneration claims). Moreover, labour disputes in both the B&R countries and China shared a great deal of similarity with regard to their concentration in certain sectors and in certain types of claims. Therefore, mandatorily applying Chinese labour law could be convenient for Chinese workers returning from abroad who seek remedies and could allow Chinese judges to issue affirmative decisions regardless of the territory in which the worker was posted.

The cases collected by this study were limited to those filed in China by Chinese workers who were hired by Chinese enterprises and sent to work in the B&R countries and did not include those filed in the B&R countries by Chinese posted workers. Future research should therefore attempt to gather a broader range of labour disputes to further clarify the issues and need for labour protection for Chinese posted workers in the B&R countries.

This study argues that the doctrine of overriding mandatory labour rules is not entirely unproblematic because it might arbitrarily rule out the standards set by foreign labour legislation that could be more favourable to workers or offer them greater protection. Therefore, giving judges a certain degree of discretion is imperative to allow them to apply foreign labour standards when they have been proven to benefit workers.

Apart from a handful of reports on individual cases, there have been very few empirical studies regarding the general picture of labour protection for Chinese posted workers in the B&R countries. This study has adopted a novel approach to collect information on labour disputes in the B&R countries and to facilitate a qualitative analysis to test the practical implications of the doctrine of overriding mandatory labour rules.

This paper seeks to argue that racially discriminatory zoning in Colonial Hong Kong could have been a form of protectionism driven by economic considerations.

This paper was based on a review of the relevant ordinances, literature, and public information, notably data obtained from the Land Registry and telephone directories.

This paper reveals that many writings on racial matters in Hong Kong were not a correct interpretation or presentation of facts. It shows that after the repeal of the discriminatory laws in 1946, an increasing number of people, both Chinese and European, were living in the Peak district. Besides, Chinese were found to be acquiring land even under the discriminatory law for Barker Road during the mid‐1920s and became, after 1946, the majority landlords by the mid‐1970s. This testifies to the argument that the Chinese could compete economically with Europeans for prime residential premises in Hong Kong.

This paper lends further support to the Lawrence‐Marco proposition raised in Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design by Lai and Yu, which regards segregation zoning as a means to reduce the effective demand of an economically resourceful social group.

This paper shows how title documents for land and telephone directories can be used to measure the degree of racial segregation.

This paper is the first attempt to systematically re‐interpret English literature on racially discriminatory zoning in Hong Kong's Peak area using reliable public information from Crown Leases and telephone directories.

This paper aims to unfold the intricate relations between private law design, the structure of organizations for collective action and cultural values and orientations that practically guide interpersonal interactions in Chinese society.

Drawing upon the Hofstede Insights National Culture survey (The Culture Compass) data and some judicial rulings in China, this paper examines the legislative development and judicial approach to settle condominium disputes to explain and address the cultural orientation for future legal reform. This paper examines how the law reflects and responds to the cultural and social variations/interactions among the stakeholders, namely, local government, developers, homeowner associations, condo owners and property management agents.

Culture plays a significant role in shaping how condominiums are governed in China. This analysis can highlight the role of cultural factors that influence the success or failure of condominium governance and suggest ways in which governance structures can be adapted to reflect the legal culture of the community better. The emphasis on social harmony, respect for authority, relationships and networks and knowledge and expertise all contribute to a unique approach to condominium governance that reflects the values and priorities of Chinese society.

While much has been written on the importance of property rights to economic development, relatively little seems to be understood about processes of change in complex property systems, particularly in China, a socialist-transforming country. Specifically, there is a lack of reliable knowledge about the intricate relations between the structure of organizations for collective action and cultural orientations that practically guide interpersonal interactions in Chinese society. The question at the heart of this research relates to the condominium rules most suitable for an emerging Chinese private property market.

The Macau Special Administrative Region (MSAR) of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has a unique identity. This study is based on a long period of research undertaken between 1995 and 2014. Permanent residents, the Chinese of Macau and all other MSAR residents constitute a body of model “citizens” which makes their legal identity understandable in the MSAR’s present social and economic context. Macau’s legal identity is based on centuries of trade and commerce. In Article 5 of the first chapter (I-5) of the MSAR’s Basic Law, the “way of life” in Macau’s society and economy are recognized as part of the MSAR’s legal framework. However, social change may play an important role in Macau’s development. The purpose of this paper is to look at the legal corpus as though it was a physical body with rights and duties, but also capabilities based on the nationality and residence statuses of its citizens, its companies and other entities (which will be studied more specifically in following articles).

This study has used the combined approaches of fieldwork carried out between 2010 and 2015, interviews, and questionnaires.

Way of life and the concept of One Country, Two Systems are key points that contribute to Macau’s contemporary identity. Way of life in the Basic Law constitutes a complex matrix formulation based on a series of particular facts and cultural traits, which leads to a better legal definition of important concepts such as nationality and residency in the particular case of Macau. The Basic Law is the constitutional law of the MSAR, but “Chineseness” still dominates the locals’ identity from day to day. More than 65 percent of the interviewees in the survey asserted their “Chineseness.” However, both Chinese and Portuguese, will continue to be official languages of Macau until 2049. The MSAR’s Chinese society speaks Cantonese and increasingly Putonghua, but it does not seem concerned by communicating using the Portuguese language. Clayton’s thesis emphasized the “unique cultural identity” of the MSAR and wrote that what made the Chinese of Macau “different from other Chinese, is the existence of a Portuguese state on Chinese soil.” Portuguese cultural tolerance is not mentioned, but it is a historical fact that has influenced Macau’s legal identity. The MSAR’s government has done its best to harmonize Macau’s multicultural society and it has particularly protected the Sino-Portuguese way of life in Macau.

To apply the law and maintain the existing harmony in its society and economy, legal actions have had to be taken by the Macau government and courts. The courts of the MSAR are structured in three levels and have final powers of adjudication, except in very narrow political areas. The judicial system includes the following courts, from the highest to the lowest: the Court of Final Appeal, the Court of Second Instance and the Court of First Instance (Tribunal de Primeira Instância).

This research is unique inasmuch as studies of legal identities focussed on large regions such as the MSAR of China are rare.

Given the unique cultural-political context of China, this paper aims to investigate two research questions: What has been the development trajectory of policy-making on consumer privacy protection in China, and what factors have shaped its development over the years?

This paper adopts a historical approach and examines the development of Chinese consumer privacy policy during four periods: 1980s, 1990s, 2000s and 2010-present.

Chinese policy-making on consumer privacy protection has made steady advancement in the past few decades due to factors such as technological development, elite advocacy and emulation of other markets; however, the effects of these factors are conditioned by local forces.

To date, most studies of consumer privacy issues have focused on Western countries, especially the European Union and the USA. A better understanding of how consumer privacy policy has developed in China provides important lessons on the promotion of consumer privacy protection in other developing countries.

The purpose of this paper is to study the evolution of Chinese industrial relations after the market reform of 1978, while basing its arguments and conclusion on analysis of the interactions of key actors in the labour arena in China. The significant phenomena in the evolution of industrial relations are the coming of transnational capital and the emergence of self‐organising protests by migrant workers.

The paper uses a case study approach.

The Labour Contract Law and the local political economy experience strong effects from TNCs and other business players. Meanwhile, globalisation has introduced the civil society movement to China, which has given rise to an increasing number of NGOs working for labour rights. Tight financial and technical connections between grassroots NGOs and international donor organisations make it possible for bottom‐up labour activities to counteract the unilateral influence of the state and market over the Chinese workforce. Since the ACFTU, the official trade union umbrella, has many institutional constraints to undertake a thorough transition towards labour in the near future, workers' representation is diversified.

One implication for further theoretical studies is that tripartism cannot fully disclose the reality of Chinese labour, and that labour representation derives from both unions and self‐organisation of workers, such as NGOs, which opens more room for the entrenchment of the grassroots labour movement to sustain the balance of power among the state, ACFTU, firms, international market forces and individual workers in the long term.

As far as governments are concerned, it is the nationality of a person, usually reflected in a passport, that shows whether the government has a duty to protect that individual and whether the person owes obligations to the state. Hong Kong is unusual in that for many people there, passports are primarily seen as documents that offer safety and security. It is not unusual for people to possess two or more passports. The purpose of this paper is to examine attitudes toward passports on the part of Hong Kong people, formed by their unique experience.

This paper analyzes key documents, such as China’s Nationality Law and a little known document, “Explanations of Some Questions by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress Concerning the Implementation of the Nationality Law of the People’s Republic of China in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.” The paper also looks at the Loh case of August 2016, involving a Canadian man who wanted a Hong Kong passport for his 11-year-old Canadian-born son, and the Patrick Tse case, where Hong Kong tried to strip a teenager who possessed German nationality of his Hong Kong passport.

The convenience of travel to China with a Home Return Permit seems to outweigh any sense of loyalty to an adopted country in the west, or the realization that the use of a document identifying its holder as a Chinese national means that she/he would not have any consular protection. It is also ironical that the Hong Kong Government should maintain the difference between nationality and ethnicity at a time when the Chinese Government is doing the very opposite, playing down the status of nationality while magnifying the importance of so-called “Chinese blood.”

This paper examines a topic that has not been widely studied but is likely to become more important in the years to come as China’s impact on the rest of the world increases. The nationality status of ethnic Chinese will increasingly become an issue as the flow of travel between China and other countries rises and Chinese immigrants continue to take up foreign nationality. While this issue is of special importance to Hong Kong, its impact will extend to countries around the world, in fact, to wherever Chinese persons are to be found.

Recent case law suggests a reluctance on the part of the courts to allow the Chinese wall within law firms as a device to prevent conflicts of interest. This paper examines the recent case law and considers whether the courts' reasoning is justified. The author suggests that the validity of the Chinese wall should be considered on a case‐by‐case basis rather than by a near irrefutable presumption against it He then sets out a series of safeguards which might create an effective Chinese wall.