This special event highlights two groundbreaking new books exploring the legal history of Hong Kong.

Penalties of Empire, by Christopher Munn, explores how judges, juries and lawyers strove to deliver justice during the 150 years when the death penalty was in force in Hong Kong. Nine key capital trials are discussed in detail. The final two chapters examine the decline of the death penalty after World War II and the controversies leading to its final abolition in 1993. Penalties of Empire traces the evolution of criminal justice at its highest levels. It also offers a prism for understanding some of the broader forces at work in Hong Kong’s history.

Extradition and Empire, by Ivan Lee, explores the interwoven origins of British colonial rule in Hong Kong and the British imperial law of extradition, c. 1842–1873. It explains the origins of extradition law as involving wide-ranging disputes and experiments in the legal ordering of people, territory, and executive power in early colonial Hong Kong.

About the Speakers:

Christopher Munn served as an administrative officer in the Hong Kong government and in various positions in the Hong Kong Monetary Authority. His other publications include Anglo-China: Chinese People and British Rule in Hong Kong, 1841–1880, a history of the Faculty of Law at the University of Hong Kong, and (with May Holdsworth) Crime, Justice and Punishment in Colonial Hong Kong.

Ivan Lee is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Law at the National University of Singapore. His research interests lie in legal history and criminal law, with emphasis on ideas and practices of criminal law, jurisdiction, and procedure in the British Empire during the nineteenth century.

*CPD credits are available upon application and subject to accreditation by the Law Society of Hong Kong (currently pending).

Register here to attend the Joint Seminar on or before 21 October 2025, 12:30pm (Hong Kong Time).